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THE RIVER ROAD 


A Novel of New England 
Seacoast Folk 


BY 

HAMILTON THOMPSON 


Frontispiece by 
GEORGE W. GAGE 




New York 

W. J. Watt & Company 
publishers 




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Copyright, 1923, by 
W. J. WATT & COMPANY 


JUN 15 1923 


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Printed in the United States of America 


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TO THE MEMORY 


OF ONE WHO KNEW AND LOVED 
HER NEW ENGLAND 

< 1 % 



THE RIVER ROAD 


CHAPTER I 

P ROPELLED by the none too gentle foot of 
Ozra Hemingway, one of Captain Caleb 
Fish’s old wire eel pots went whirling through 
the white-washed picket gate, where it lay across the 
flagged pavement, half in and half out of the yard. 

“Dang!” exploded the crabbed Ozra, and he gave 
the contraption an added kick for daring to be in his 
way. At that moment Ozra Hemingway had full 
sympathy with Mrs. Anastasia Fish, who was always 
complaining: “How can a woman be expected to 
keep a nice front yard when it was forever cluttered 
up with sick lobster pots, torn fish nets, small boat 
gear, and the like, that a man who had given up the 
sea, like Cap’n Caleb, was alwas’ droppin’ about— 
and oughter know better!” 

Mr. Ozra Hemingway—a seafaring man, too, 
he would with pride have informed a stranger as he 
recounted great tales of his days ’board ship— 
though those in the know would have told you that 
Ozra’s exploits had more to do with pots and 
kettles in his galley than with romance, since he had 
been but a ship’s cook—was in a hurry. 



2 


THE RIVER ROAD 


While he was changing his shirt, a good fifteen 
minutes before, he had heard the whistle of the 
morning mail packet approaching its landing. With 
Mr. Hemingway, changing his shirt was as great a 
ceremony as it was a rare one—never being done 
until the color and fabric of the one he was wearing 
had reached a state of unrecognizability. Where¬ 
fore, it sometimes had to be changed. But he did 
not like to have the changing interfere with his 
most serious business. By not taking notice of the 
hour, he had chosen the wrong period in which to 
change his shirt, and now he was in danger of being 
late to the post office. 

The train was already in but the morning mail 
was never completely distributed until after the 
arrival of the up-river boat, and the crowd always 
waited. Now everybody might be gone. That 
would never do. The most important business of 
Ozra’s life was to gossip at the post office and to¬ 
day there was something real to gossip about. 
Something had at last happened in Bayport; and he 
had much that he wanted to say about it—and a lot 
more that he wanted to learn. 

By now, Ma Tisdale and her crowd would be 
there, and Mr. Ozra Hemingway had no notion of, 
surrendering, even to her, his crown as chief pur¬ 
veyor of news, and the village’s truest, if most 
lugubrious prophet. Hence, he was in a hurry, and 
he felt no kindly regard for anything that retarded 
his progress. 

Bayport was in a furore. The whole village had 


THE RIVER ROAD 


3 


not been so disrupted, according to Captain Caleb 
Fish, since part of the Methodist Church had 
seceded from the main body, because it did not hold 
with the idea of sprinkling, when anybody ought to 
know that a body was not properly baptised unless 
immersed. 

The village was in the midst of civil war, as it 
were—war between the sexes—and it had reached 
the point where the women were just about to win 
out. At least, the cohorts of Ozra Hemingway, the 
most bitter stand-outer for the rights of men, were 
about to go down to defeat before the braver on¬ 
slaughts of Ma Tisdale and her champions, who 
held out for the rights of women. 

To put it more exactly, the bitter struggle had 
narrowed itself down to a personal controversy be¬ 
tween Ozra Hemingway and Ma Tisdale—and any¬ 
one in Bayport knew that no one, not even the sharp- 
tongued, pessimistic Ozra, had a chance with Ma 
Tisdale, once she had made up her mind. 

It was all on account of the Neptune Club. For 
years, the Neptune Club had been Bayport’s big 
institution. It was believed to be as impregnable as 
the rocks of Ripping Reef, outside Bayport’s harbor. 

Originally its membership had been composed en¬ 
tirely of deep-water sailormen—and those were the 
happy days! They were the right little, tight little 
clique all to themselves. They were proud of their 
exploits, and were never so happy as when snugly 
ensconsed in their club room, spinning the yarns 
that could not be denied, since there was none to say 


4 


THE RIVER ROAD 


“nay” to whatever might be recounted of happenings 
out in the Seven Seas. 

Then the club had started to disintegrate. With 
the decadence of the whaling industry, with its fall¬ 
ing off of raw material, it had become necessary to 
let the portholes open, figuratively speaking. And 
so, the membership had changed. Seafaring men of 
all description—coasting skippers, fishermen, barge 
men, with a sprinkling of yacht captains—“brass 
button boys,” as this type of sailorman were rather 
opprobriously called—had been admitted, but not 
without doleful head shakings on the part of the 
original shell-backs. 

Now it looked as if the end of things had come. 
Certainly the liberty, if nothing more, of free sailor- 
men w^as threatened. The women had declared 
themselves in on the Neptune Club, and it looked as 
though not even Ozra Hemingway’s bitter denuncia¬ 
tion of the idea, or all the fighting of the club’s mem¬ 
bers, w r ould be of any avail. 

Ma Tisdale had spoken! 

There was to be an Auxiliary 'to the Neptune 
Club—and that was all there was to it! 

“There is reform needed in that club,” declared 
Ma Tisdale, and her thin lips shut tight in the ex¬ 
pression Bayporters knew so well—none better, 
though, than her own step-son Trueman Tisdale, and 
his pretty young w r ife, Martha, who had early found 
out that Ma Tisdale was a disagreeably persistent 
sort of person. 

Ozra Hemingway turned the corner toward the 


THE RIVER ROAD 


5 


post office just in time to witness Ma Tisdale’s 
triumphant exit. There was something in the car¬ 
riage of that tall thin figure, with its flapping calico 
skirt, that spelled misfortune to the former sea cook. 
Under his clean shirt, his heart sank. 

If he had needed further confirmation of his worst 
fears, though, it would have been given him by the 
sheepish manner with which Captain Caleb Fish 
hurried away at his, Ozra’s, approach. 

Not that any one could say that Captain Caleb 
was in any wise afraid of Ozra—for was not Captain 
Caleb the richest, and therefore, the most important, 
man in town? Bluff and hearty in manner and 
speech, good nature fairly radiated from his counte¬ 
nance. He was a type of the deep-water sailorman 
that is fast disappearing. He had given up the sea 
a few years before, though, and had, when he signed 
up for shore duty, taken a wife unto himself. In 
his mating, as in many other matters, Captain Caleb 
had been more fortunate than many, for in choosing 
Anastasia to skipper his shore craft he had chosen 
a woman whose amiability was as noticeable as her 
goodly proportions. 

On the sea, Captain Caleb had made it his boast 
that he was afraid of no man. On shore, he made a 
valiant effort to carry it out, but there was Ozra 
Hemingway with whom to reckon. 

He “warn’t afeered of Oz ’xactly,” he had often 
remarked, but he “jest couldn’t abide no he-male 
gabber.” Likewise, he “would run a mile from a 
woman’s tongue, and Oz war a dern sight wuss.” 


6 


THE RIVER ROAD 


It was characteristic of Captain Caleb, however, 
that he had an excuse for Ozra. He had one for 
any individual who was unfortunate enough to be 
disagreeable. 

“Oz has suffered a come-down in life,” he ex¬ 
plained to members of the Neptune Club one day 
when the question of the desirability of Ozra had 
come up for about the hundredth time. “Prob’ly 
’counts fer his ingrowin’ disposition—for Oz was a 
good cook in the old days—old days of long whalin’ 
vy’ages, that lasted two and three years. A ‘doctor’ 
of the galley war a mighty important pusson, I kin 
tell ye, and he ranked high, too—almost next ter 
th’ skipper. And now, to spend his last days as a 
plain ord’nary clam digger—wal, now, hain’t that 
’nough to sour anybuddy’s disposition?” 

Ozra Hemingway, as he hove in sight, did not fail 
to see Captain Caleb hurrying away from the post 
office. It was enough for him. He knew that Cap¬ 
tain Caleb, in spite of ail opposition that he, Ozra, 
had put up—in spite of all his urging, had at last 
capitulated. Which being the case, meant also that 
Captain Hen and Captain Lem, too, who always fol¬ 
lowed the portly Captain Caleb, had gone by the 
board. If so, the day was lost. 

The members of the Neptune Club had felt that 
they could safely leave the ultimate decision in all 
important matters to the trio of old salts who were 
the club’s oldest originators. And so when it seemed 
impossible to longer put off the momentous decision 
of tacking on an auxiliary, Captain Caleb Fish, 


THE RIVER ROAD 


7 


Captain Hen Berry and Captain Lem Tooker com¬ 
posed the committee, whose word was to be final, and 
was to be so accepted by all. 

Captain Caleb’s ignominious retreat could mean 
only one thing. Ozra glared malignantly in the 
direction of the portly captain’s disappearing figure. 

Jonas Sands hitched up a suspender and tittered 
at Ozra, as the little man blew into the post office, 
“like the blast of a sou’easter,” as Captain Hen, 
seated on a soap box unobserved by the angry ex¬ 
cook, remarked with a wink to one of the youngsters 
whom he was regaling with a sea yarn in the interim 
of patching up the sail of a shingle ship. 

“Wal, I see they beat ye, Oz!” was Jonas’ 
exasperating greeting. 

“Meanin’ jest what?” The little sea cook’s voice 
was a rasp, as he glared at his tormenter. 

“Meanin’,” went on Jonas, leaning up against the 
door casing the better to enjoy the effect of his news, 
“that if ye had been here a bit sooner ye would have 
heard first hand how Cap’n Caleb and Cap’n Hen, 
and ’tother of the committee had decided to let the 
wimmin inter th’ Neptune Club. Ma Tisdale was 
jest here, brimmin’ over with importance, and she 
and some on th’ rest of ’em were braggin’ on how 
they were goin’to begin to reform you old shell-backs, 
and bring some culture to that club that has been a 
sin and a disgrace for so long. ’Low ye’ll find pretty 
pink ribbins on yer cheers when ye git thar, and 
mebby a few hand-painted spittoons—” 

Ozra did not wait for further details. Something 


8 


THE RIVER ROAD 


resembling a groan escaped him as he turned and fled 
from the tittering Jonas—fled without going through 
the time-honored ceremony of opening his letter-box 
for the long-expected missive that never came, unless 
it was a circular, a catalogue or the like. Outside the 
door, he came up before Captain Hen with a jerk. 

“I’d like ter know,” was his wrathful beginning. 

Unnoticing, Captain Hen lifted Myra Morton’s 
youngest to his knee, as he w T ent on with the weird 
story he was telling. 

“As I war sayin,’ ” he related to the crowding 
youngsters who were listening with wide-opened eyes, 
“the natives live in th’ tree-tops like monkeys. The 
men folks always wear stove-pipe hats in th’ mornin’, 
like Doc Stivers, and swallow-tail coats in the evenin’, 
th’ same as the minister. An’ they go out in their 
autermobiles, a’skimmin’ ’long the beach—” 

“Huh! ’Tain’t surprisin’ none that th’ young uns 
of this village is spoilt what with th’ tarnation lyin’ 
of—” 

Ozra’s second bid for recognition had results. 
Captain Hen looked up with a grin. 

“Oh, thar ye be, Oz,” he drawled with an assumed 
placidity he did not feel, but which infuriated the 
already exasperated clam digger. “Oughter be a 
good tide to-day. Be ye goin’ down ter th’ flats?” 

“No, I be’ant,” snapped the angry Ozra. 

“Wal, it’s a fine day; what’s on yer mind, Ozra?” 

“On my mind? Huh! Ye kin ask—” In his 
righteous wrath, the small man could only stutter. 
“Ye kin ask—you and Caleb Fish who sneaks off 


THE RIVER ROAD 


9 


’cause he’s afeered to face me—and the rest of ye! 
Traitors! Mebby ye’ll tell me, Mr. Cap’n Hen 
Berry,” there was emphasis in the extra title. “Is 
hit true what Jonas says? Is hit true that ye have 
let th’ wimmin in?” 

“Now, don’t ye go gittin’ obstrep’rus, Oz,” 
soothed Captain Hen. “I wouldn’t say as how we 
let ’em in ’xactly, but I ’low hit’s ’bout right that 
they’ve kinder slipped in. Guess hit t’won’t do ye 
no harm. I ’low, though,” he went on hastily, at 
the almost apoplectic twist of Ozra’s countenance, 
“mebby some on us needs that air reformin’ they’re 
contin’ally talkin’ ’bout—” 

Captain Hen waited until Ozra’s face had re¬ 
verted more to its habitual expression before ven¬ 
turing another remark. “Ye know, Ma Tisdale is 
goin’ in fer reformin’ and sech—” 

“Ma Tisdale reformin’! Huh!” There was a 
whole volume in Ozra Hemingway’s snort. “And 
ye let ’em do hit?” If looks could have killed, 
Captain Hen would have shriveled on his soap box. 

“What ye goin’ ter do?” he demanded weakly, 
“when they’s pir-rates ’board? ’Low ye better let 
’em trap ye in the hold ruther than make ye walk 
the plank.” 

Captain Hen turned from the wrathy Ozra to the 
children who were wonderingly trying to grasp the 
import of the altercation. They were used to the 
rages of Ozra Hemingway—who in Bayport was 
not? But they did not like the somewhat sad ex- 



10 


THE RIVER ROAD 


pression on the face of their usually jovial story¬ 
teller and best friend. 

Had Captain ITen been a little less rotund, and 
a little taller—had his beard been longer instead of 
being the gray fringe it was, framing his moon-like 
face—and had he been a few other things, he might 
have passed for the Ancient Mariner himself, as 
far as being a son of the sea was concerned, for 
he wore all the earmarks of his former calling as a 
badge of honor. 

In Bayport, Captain Hen was spoken of as a 
character. Nor did he resent—he rather relished 
the appellation. A kindly, philosophical old soul, 
who had a good word for every one—a man whom 
the children followed on the streets, and who was 
never happier than w T hen whittling out for them a 
toy of some sort, or a boat, and attaching paper sails 
to it, while he spun sea yarns for their entertainment. 

Captain Hen would never have been able to pose 
for any fashion plate, but in his nautical togs he was 
a wholesome figure—and one for whom people’s eyes 
lighted up with pleasure when he “hove to.” He 
was addicted to baggy old trousers, and there was 
always a patch on one knee. Captain Caleb always 
said: “That thar knee was worn out by children 
who dumb on hit.” 

It was a secret whether or not Captain Hen wore 
suspenders, for any sign was covered up by his old 
sweater with its anchor decoration in worsteds, the 
sleeves of which were rolled back to display a horny 
weathered hand and the tattooed ship and coat of 




THE RIVER ROAD 


11 


arms on the inside of an arm that was gnarled and 
knotted. 

“What need did Cap’n Hen have fer suspen¬ 
ders?” argued Captain Caleb in defense of his old 
shipmate. “Any’un with a hitch like his’n could keep 
’em up by main force and awkwardness.” 

But when Captain Caleb defended him, he was 
sure to add—evidently in order that the defense 
would not puff him up any, that “Cap’n Hen 
Berry was th’ most logical liar ’tween P’int Jude and 
Bangor.” 

And now, despite his invariable optimism and of 
his apparent philosophical acceptance of the facts, 
Captain Hen was far from happy at the thought 
of feminine invasion of the heretofore sacred pre¬ 
cincts of the Neptune Club. 

Like Captain Caleb and Captain Lem, he had 
been out-generaled and out-talked. And as he sat 
in the sun, his youthful admirers gathered about him, 
he was troubled. For he, like everyone else in Bay- 
port, knew just what surrender to Ma Tisdale—to 
her chief lieutenant, Mehitable Sands, and the lesser 
lights—meant. 

The Neptune Club was to be reformed and puri¬ 
fied. There was no doubt of it. The long-fought 
battle of an auxiliary or no auxiliary was over. The 
Auxiliary was a fact! 

Jonas Sands’ statement that the women of Bay- 
port were even then taking possession was a true 
one. 

Ma Tisdale had waited for no more than Captain 


12 


THE RIVER ROAD 


Caleb, Captain Lem and Captain Hen’s hesitating 
“yes” to lead her triumphant band to the club rooms 
and to begin their work of reforming. 

Mops and brooms were already flying with fev¬ 
erish energy through the big main room that had 
been for so long a time a haven of rest, and even 
beloved for its cobwebs and tobacco-stained floor 
and sawdust-filled spit boxes. 

Captain Hen was thoughtful for a moment as he 
watched Ozra Hemingway clumping down the street. 
A sigh of regret escaped him. He was brought out 
of his reverie by a small hand that tugged at his 
fresco of whiskers, and an eager voice that 
demanded: 

“Tell us some more, Cap’n Hen; tell us some 
more!” 

Captain Hen’s eyes were still on Ozra. He shook 
his head, and then a grin came back to his weathered 
features, as he visualized the reception awaiting the 
ex-cook at the club rooms. 

“Wal, hit will make Ozra cheerful, as usual— 
jest as cheerful as th’ blast of a sou’easter—” He 
brought himself out of his soliloquy at the persistence 
of the children. 

“Speakin’ ’bout blasts,” he went on chucklingly, 
as though there had been no interruption, “reminds 
me of a twist of wind we onc’t had down off 
Desolation. Yes, siree,” flipping the Morton young¬ 
ster under the chin, “it war so durned blasty hit 
worked ’round under our far’ard bilge, an’ jest lifted 
that air vessel’s nose clean outer water—and a big 




THE RIVER ROAD 


13 


snub-nosed whale, what had breached off ter th’ 
star’bard a moment before, swum clear under us, 
without touchin’ hide or hair of th’ keel—” 

“O-o-o-h!” breathed the delighted Morton boy, 
as he hid his face under Captain Hen’s chin camou¬ 
flage. The old sailorman laughed as his head 
wagged sagely. 

“Yes, siree, that war some blast. . . . And I’m 
thinkin’ some more blasts jest like hit air ’bout due.” 
H is face again took on a worried look as he gazed 
down the street. 


CHAPTER II 


O ZRA HEMINGWAY, after his last say in 
the disrupted club room, was glooming at the 
window that looked out down the river to¬ 
ward the sea, when Captain Hen started clubward. 
In spite of the fact that the Neptune Club would never 
again be what it had been, Captain Hen could not 
remain away. Through all his bachelor shore ex¬ 
istence, the Neptune Club had been to him what the 
homes of other men had been to them. Now all 
was changed. He squirmed as there rose before 
him the vision of Ma Tisdale as high priestess of 
the club. 

Along the narrow winding street that was so un¬ 
changed with the passing years that it was the same 
as in the prosperous days of whaling and when 
whaling men called Bayport their home port, the 
doughty old sailorman’s mind was shrouded in 
gloom. Unseeing he passed the “Variety Store,” 
and gave but a perfunctory nod to Miss Amanda 
Perkins, who stood on the stoop of her home next 
door, one hand shading her eyes as she contemplated 
the sky for weather signs. Unconsciously Captain 
Hen’s gaze lifted toward the tops of the houses, 
and as he tugged at his fringe of circling whiskers, 
a reminiscent expression came to his face. 


THE RIVER ROAD 


15 


“That was a time when wimmin—” he whispered 
to himself, “when wimmin—” 

The rest was completed in his mind. And it con¬ 
cerned the “Widow’s Walk” atop the Sands home 
two houses down the street. Was the time when 
the women of Bayport were content with far dif¬ 
ferent activities than bothering with the running of 
a seaman’s club. There were too many real serious 
things to do in those days—too much else to think 
about. 

The “Widow’s Walk” on the Sands house brought 
it all back as though it had been but yesterday—the 
hours on hours that the wives of Bayport had passed 
on the little fenced-in platforms atop their houses, 
watching for their men folk to return safely from 
sea. 

In those days the women fulfilled the somber 
refrain: 

“For men must work, and women must weep— 

Though the harbor bar be moaning—” 


In those days, a little flat place, surrounded by a 
railing, was built on nearly all of the houses of 
Bayport, that faced the harbor, and it came to be 
known as the “Widow’s Walk.” And there the wife 
would watch and wait for the ship that was late 
in coming—and often the wife would be the widow, 
who would never see her man again. 

Captain Hen’s absorption was terminated 
abruptly, as Mrs. Anastasia Fish bore down on him, 
with “all sails set.” The old sailor’s face lighted 


16 


THE RIVER ROAD 


up, for he, like almost everyone else in Bayport, 
always had a smile for the good-natured consort of 
Captain Caleb Fish. She was everybody’s friend. 
Where Anastasia went, from there gloom fled, and 
sunshine came in its place. 

“Wal, Cap’n Hen,” she greeted, as she paused 
in her hurried walk, her ample bosom rising and 
falling rhythmically beneath her over-filled black silk 
basque, “ye look like ye was bilious; ’tain’t serious, 
be hit?” 

The twinkle in Anastasia’s eyes indicated that she 
well knew her question to be superfluous. 

Captain Hen’s head wagged, and he pulled his 
whiskers vigorously, as was his custom when per¬ 
plexed. 

“Guess ye thinkin’ ’bout th’ club, hain’t ye?” she 
asked. “An’ ye think everything’s gone to smash 
—jest like Caleb. Since he had ter giv’ in this 
mornin’—lettin’ us wimmin inter th’ club—thar 
han’t no livin’ in th’ house with him.” 

Captain Hen came back to realities. With one 
hand grasping his hairy adornment, which served 
to hold his head cocked to one side, he squinted side¬ 
ways at her. 

“Anastasia, do ye think hit’s all right for ye wim¬ 
min to bust inter our club as ye have?” 

Mrs. Fish laughed heartily. 

“Oh, cheer up, Hen Berry,” she retorted. “Hit 
won’t be as bad as ye think; cheer up! Washing¬ 
ton’s Birthday is over, I know, but th’ Fourth of 
July is cornin’—an’ chowder—” 


THE RIVER ROAD 


17 


For an instant, a light came into the depressed 
sailorman’s eyes. 

“Chowder?” he repeated. “An’ ye—” 

Mrs. Fish nodded cheerily. “Yes,” she finished, 
“Ma Tisdale may be head boss, but I’m chief chow- 
derer.” 

“Thar may be some things ter be thankful fer, 
after all,” was Captain Hen’s admission, “but what 
I’m a thinkin’ of is Ma Tisdale and Mehitable, 
and—” 

“They won’t bite ye none,” came from the big 
woman testily. “Mebby ye’ll be glad after awhile, 
when ye see what we can do fer th’ club—” 

But Captain Hen was not to be so easily appeased. 

“Ye know Ma Tisdale,” he began. 

“And ye know me, too,” completed Mrs. Fish. 
“Now, I’m askin’ right out, Hen Berry, have ye 
any objections ter me in yer club?” 

Uneasy as he was at the question so bluntly put, 
all the gallantry of which he was capable was mus¬ 
tered to answer this wife of his best friend. 

“But, they’re not all like you, Anastasia,” he said. 
“The Good Book tells somewhere ’bout a little 
leavenin’ the whole lump, but what I do say now is 
this—” he paused to give emphasis to his remark, 
“If you think ye can leaven this lot of Bayport 
wimmin, then ye’re gotter be a lot bigger yeast cake 
than ye be.” 

Mrs. Fish gave him a playful push. “Oh, you 
go on, Cap’n Hen Berry,” she simpered. “How 


18 


THE RIVER ROAD 


in time sech a flatterer as you wuz never married 
beats my stars!” 

But as she again got under way down the street, 
and Captain Hen ambled on toward the disrupted 
club, the big wife of Captain Caleb Fish was pleased 
—mightily pleased. 

Mrs. Fish had referred to Washington’s Birth¬ 
day. It was the day of days to the members of 
the Neptune Club—a day to be celebrated by a 
parade and an all-day jamboree. Clam chowder 
and plum duff held high places in the menu. 

There was no such maker of chowder and plum 
duff in all Bayport as Mrs. Anastasia Fish, and therei 
was a little lightening of Captain Hen’s burden as 
he remembered this fact. At least, with women like 
Mrs. Fish in the club, the feasts were certain of 
success. And Captain Hen loved his chowder. 
Now, she had intimated, too, there would be two 
big gala days in the club’s year, for it was evident 
the women intended to add the Fourth of July to 
their merry-making times. 

Heretofore, only Washington’s Birthday had been 
celebrated. The immortal George was the patron 
saint of the Neptuners—why, no one could have told 
Seasily, unless the rumor that had so long been per¬ 
sistent was true—that the great patriot was revered 
so because the Neptuners themselves took such liber¬ 
ties with the truth. Be that as it may, Neptuners’ 
yarns were celebrated all along the coast, and had 
been for many a moon. 

Captain Hen believed he smelled soapsuds before 


THE RIVER ROAD 


19 


he turned the corner of the winding street that led 
to the club rooms. He knew that his nostrils had 
not betrayed him as he almost timidly opened the 
door and slipped in. How contrasting to the times 
and times he had rolled into the same room and 
known himself to be in a safe harbor! 

Soapsuds were in the air! The floor was still wet 
from its unaccustomed scrubbing, and Captain Hen’s 
sniff gave him another pang. At first he did not 
know what it was. Then he realized. The smell 
of nicotine that had been the homiest of odors for 
so long, was missing. It smelled sort of like a 
hospital! Captain Hen almost groaned as he slid 
into a chair beside Captain Lem Tooker and Captain 
Tony Keeney, the old tars too depressed with the 
day’s doings to set up the checkers that lay idly be¬ 
tween them. 

Ma Tisdale, her skirts pinned up apron-fashion 
across her knees, came sloshing in from the galley, 
with a pail of water. She looked crossly at the three 
men. 

“We’re goin’ now, for awhile,” she announced 
sternly to the forlorn sailormen who watched her, and 
Mehitable Sands, who followed gingerly, shaking 
out her wet broom, “and don’t ye dast let me ketch 
ye spittin’ on th’ clean floor—you, Cap’n Hen Berry, 
or you, Cap’n Tony, or you, either, Cap’n Lem 
Tooker—and don’t ye cuss, nuther,” she added to 
the latter with an extra glare. There came a rumble 
from Captain Lem’s throat, a noise that Ma Tisdale 
did not like. 


20 


THE RIVER ROAD 


“Yes’m,” was Captain Hen’s meek reply; and a 
duet of groans from the other two was their reply. 
For a moment after Ma Tisdale’s triumphant exit 
the men did not speak. Shame-facedly they glanced 
at each other. 

‘‘Reform,” began Captain Hen plaintively, but the; 
explosion that came from the opened lips of Captain 
Lem Tooker, cusser in extraordinary of the Neptune 
Club, fairly shook the rafters of the building. It 
established a record right then and there. It was a 
safe guess that feminine rule in the Neptune Club was 
not overly popular with him. 

Aside from the odor of the soapsuds and anti¬ 
septics, the rooms of the Neptune Club were as they 
had been for many a memorable day—indeed, ever 
since the time the club was first started, in a nearby 
sail loft. 

The men looked about them at the familiar ob¬ 
jects. Yes, there was the huge-bellied stove, in its 
place of honor in the center of the room, dismantled 
of its pipe and trappings for the summer. There 
were the wooden armchairs, worn shiny by the loung¬ 
ing of members who had occupied them for years. 
There were even the familiar-whittled spots where 
sailormen, carried away by the yarns they were spin¬ 
ning, had absent-mindedly cut into the surfaces. 
There were the boxes of sawdust doing duty as cus¬ 
pidors. Each of the men wondered, as they glanced 
at the cuspidors, how much longer they would last. 
Ma Tisdale had mentioned them. Perhaps, even 
then she was on her way to buy some new fangled 



THE RIVER ROAD 


21 


ornate ones. There were the same marine trophies 
and pictures of men and ships that had been finding 
a last resting place in the club rooms for these many 
years. 

Over in one corner of the big room was a par- 
titioned-off space that had always been affectionately 
dubbed the “galley.” This club kitchen had an en¬ 
trance that was rounded out into a quarter circle, 
apparently to make possible a sliding door of the 
same design—a door that had worked its way into 
the affections of the sailormen who had designed it 
—for it had been the cause of more picturesque, half- 
forgotten sea oaths, when it had refused to slide, 
than anything else in the club. 

Yes, aside from the strangely clean smell, the club 
seemed the same—but yet it was not the same. 
Captain Hen gingerly let his chair down from its 
prop against the wall, as though afraid of disturbing 
someone who was sick or sleeping. It was in almost 
a whisper that Captain Tony spoke as he rose and 
squinted out of the window. 

“ ’Most dinner time,” he commented. “Now, 
where in time do ye ’spose Cap’n Caleb—” 

As if in answer to the query, Captain Caleb Fish 
joined his cronies. But it was not in his usual 
blustering way. Captain Caleb was plainly subdued. 
He looked about him anxiously. 

“By godfrey, it’s hot, hain’t it? Be ye ’lone,” he 
asked eagerly. The nods that answered him were 
not enthusiastic. 


22 


THE RIVER ROAD 


“Fer a minute—till Ma Tisdale gets her second 
wind,” came the reply from Captain Hen. 

Had it not been a bit pitiful, the sight of these 
sad-faced old seafarers would have been a laughable 
one—and unusual to those who really knew them, 
for there had been a time when each had been master 
of himself and of the small world aboard the ship 
where he was supreme. 

There was Captain Lem Tooker, for instance. 
There had not been a whaler along the coast who 
could have questioned his bravery. In the old days 
he had been a pretty important man. Then he had 
given up his whaling career—when the bad days fell 
on the whaling industry. Now he had taken to in¬ 
land water seafaring. The steamer Julia, which he 
skippered, was a familiar craft thereabouts. She 
had made the round trip between Harwich and Bay- 
port, so many times, that the date of the inaugu¬ 
ration of the service was lost in the mists of antiquity. 
It was a favorite saying of Captain Caleb’s when he 
felt in the mood to tease his old club mate, that the 
old tub could navigate without human agency. 

“Yes, siree; I know, one night,” he was fond of 
relating with zest, whenever any stranger was about 
to listen, “the old Julia broke away from her moor¬ 
ings and made th’ entire round trip, up the river 
and back, without a soul on board—and she made 
several stops on th’ way, too—yes, siree!” 

Only by courtesy was Captain Tony Keeney a 
captain. The old salts felt that he had earned the 
title now that he was eighty-nine, and still as smart 




THE RIVER ROAD 


23 


and pert as a man of fifty, save for the bent leg 
that made him walk with a more decided roll than 
most sailormen. In his day he had been a boat- 
steerer of the old whaling fleet, and it had been an 
accident of those days which caused him now, in his 
old age, to go to his end with a crooked leg. 

One day at sea, on the ancient whaling ship, Julius 
Caesar —fifty years, at least, before—the boat’s crew 
had fastened to a big hump-backed whale. But the 
whale did not give up without a struggle. It threshed 
out with its tail, catching the small boat plumb amid¬ 
ships, smashing the light timbers to flinders and 
knocking the crew galley west. 

All hands were picked up, but Captain Tony had 
suffered a badly fractured leg. He was tenderly 
taken aboard the whaler and stretched on a mattress 
in the vessel’s cabin. There he laid for forty-five 
days with only the rough surgical treatment the cap¬ 
tain and crew could give. Broken bones set accord¬ 
ing to their own sweet will, and the way they are 
treated. And, accordingly, Captain Tony’s crooked 
leg was a souvenir of that experience. 

And it was such men as these who now trembled 
before a feminine voice that had made itself heard 
in “masterly” tones in their own club. 

Captain Tony limped over to the window to join 
Captain Caleb, who had loosed an old ship’s sextant 
from its moorings on the wall and carried it to the 
wide-opened window overlooking the water. Cap¬ 
tain Hen and Captain Lem gathered around. A 
ceremony which w r as an old one with these cronies 


24 


THE RIVER ROAD 


was about to begin. And in the heart of each was 
the lowering thought that it might be the last. What 
if Ma Tisdale should decide to put a stop to what 
she might call foolishness? 

Captain Caleb raised the instrument on high and 
squinted through it. The others, too, looked 
anxiously up at the sun. 

“Put yer wheel up, Cap’n, ye’re ’way oh th’ hori¬ 
zon,” admonished Captain Lem. It was a daily 
ritual. 

“How in time is a man to find a horizon, when 
thar’ hain’t one, I’d like ter know,” was Captain 
Caleb’s invariable retort—a response that had been 
made a hundred times. “Any well-meanin’ horizon 
had oughter be—” 

Captain Tony took up station alongside the huge 
ship’s bell that stood in its place alongside the club’s 
capstan head. 

“Stand by,” ordered Captain Caleb, as he slowly 
tilted the arm of the instrument to find the horizon 
that was not there. 

“Eight bells!” roared Captain Caleb, in pretended 
dignity. 

Quickly the arm of Captain Tony came up, and 
with great solemnity he struck the bell, one-two, one- 
two—eight times. 

Captain Caleb’s big voice boomed out: 

“Twelve o’clock—and all’s—” 

“Hell!” exploded Captain Lem in a voice that 
none who had known him in the old days could mis¬ 
take. 







THE RIVER ROAD 


25 


Two years is a short space of time with some. 
To others it is an eternity. During the two years 
that the women of Bayport had reigned supreme in 
the Neptune Club it had seemed but a short period 
for them to have wrought such changes—to have 
brought about such vaunted “reforms,” as they had 
done. 

But in the unhappiness of the old-timers, whose 
peace of mind and independence had been invaded, 
the two years had drawn themselves into many a long 
day and night. At first they had hoped—and believed 
—that the women would tire of their auxiliary, and 
that they would be left in peace, as of yore. But, 
vain hope! At the end of two years, all such 
thoughts had vanished. It was more than ever evi- 
dent that the Woman’s Auxiliary of the Neptune 
Club had come to stay. 

There were those members—among the younger 
contingent—who actually believed that the changes 
the women had brought about in the club had im¬ 
proved it. But it was the “improvement” that was 
breaking the hearts, sometimes the spirits of the older 
sailormen who had organized it and who had cher¬ 
ished it for so many years. 

Perhaps, though, the worst dose of all to swallow, 
was the realization that the Neptune Club was no 
longer merely a social organization. It had assumed 
a duty. The Woman’s Auxiliary was the arbiter of 
the town’s morals—and woe betide man or woman 
who fell under its ire—for the fate of a townsman 


26 


THE RIVER ROAD 


or townswoman was in its hands. The slightest word 
or action of a censorable nature was sure to go be¬ 
fore the tribunal of the Woman’s Auxiliary. 

In all this, however, there was some compensation 
for, at least, one of the original members of the 
Neptune Club. It was to Ozra Hemingway’s taste. 
He whose breath of life hung on scandal and gossip 
was delighted to be among the scandal-mongers. It 
was even better than hanging around the post office. 
He had to take the scandal there. It was brought 
to the auxiliary. 







CHAPTER III 


S MOKE billowed up from the blackened, much¬ 
fingered bowl of Ozra Hemingway’s old T. 
D. pipe as from a laboring locomotive. His 
ferret-like eyes, set close together in his wizened coun¬ 
tenance, roamed discontentedly over the big sun-lit 
room of the Neptune Club. Their beady stare came 
to rest on something in front of the wide-open rear 
windows, through which came the noisy rattle and 
chugging of a steam hoister unloading a cargo of 
coal from a barge—which was in contrast to the 
serenity and calm of the outer harbor with its re¬ 
flection of the sheen of the sun and the clearness of 
the water. 

Ozra’s gaze shifted back to big portly Captain 
Caleb, who sat by the dismantled stove regarding 
the smaller man quizzically, as he tamped bits of 
Sailor’s Delight into his own weathered pipe. 

Captain Caleb knew those symptoms. Ozra was 
thinking—and was most likely about to emit one of 
those remarks which had earned for him the name 
of being the club’s chief misanthrope and pessimist. 
H is lean hand that so nearly resembled an animal’s 
claw with its hairy back, took the pipe from his 
mouth, and he blew a long gust of smoke toward 
Captain Caleb. 


27 


28 


THE RIVER ROAD 


“Wimmin,” observed Ozra Hemingway, shaking 
his pipe to emphasize his words, “wimmin is pizin.” 

Captain Caleb grinned as he nodded in the direc¬ 
tion of the windows. A pretty girl, rather an unex¬ 
pected person in the marine atmosphere of the Nep¬ 
tune Club, was standing there beside a youth, whose 
garb and manners proclaimed him, too, to be a visitor 
in the club room, but both were too busy over their 
clumsy efforts with a huge telescopic marine glass 
which in their unskilled hands wobbled all over the 
marine perspective spread before them, to know that 
they were the objects of the unkindly scrutiny of Ozra 
Hemingway. Not that they would have perhaps 
cared, for it was evident by her light laughter which 
rang through the room that the girl was more in¬ 
terested in her companion than in the old fossils of 
members who resented intrusion into their domain. 

“Not meanin’ her, in particular, was ye, Ozra?” 
inquired Captain Caleb, jerking his thumb over his 
shoulder in the girl’s direction. “What ye got agin’ 
her? Who be they anyway? Summer folks?” 

“Huh!” ejaculated Ozra Hemingway, as he spat 
expertly into the cuspidor a few feet away, the while 
he snapped a greasy suspender viciously against a 
greasy shirt. “Dunno. Hain’t int’rested, nuther; 
hain’t never int’rested where wimmin’s consarned. 
’Cept mebby when they’re gittin’ outer their rightful 
place, and steppin’ on my toes some. No, I warn’t 
speculatin’ about her,” the pipe waved toward the 
window, “jest about wimmin in general. Wimmin,” 







THE RIVER ROAD 


29 


he repeated, and there was a hint of venom in his 
words, “wimmin is pizin.” 

It was something in his companion’s intonation to 
which Captain Caleb Fish took exception. His mild 
blue eyes, the sailorman’s eyes which for years have 
accustomed themselves to a sweep of long distances 
so that they seemed always to be looking afar off, 
clouded. 

“What in thunderation do ye know about wimmin, 
By godfrey, I’d like ter know, Oz Hemingway?” he 
exploded. “None on them’s ever come clos’t 
enough to you for ye to find out about them—wal, 
not near enough to do ye any harm. And speakin’ 
about wimmin in general—they hain’t generally all 
alike. Now, my Anastasia—” 

“Huh!” once more ejaculated Ozra as he resumed 
his deep puffs. Captain Caleb swung his tiptilted 
chair to the floor with a loud bang. 

“When ye git all them ‘huhs’ outer yer system,” 
he exclaimed fiercely, “ye’ll be so durned light ye’ll 
need ballast. Now, as I was sayin’, my Anastasia—” 

“Huh!” issued again from the thin lips of Captain 
Caleb’s companion, with a jet of smoke. 

But unnoticing, the huge sea captain went on as 
though to himself. “Not that there hain’t times 
when she’s tryin’—sartinly tryin’, but in general I 
can’t say but what life’s been a heap sight more in¬ 
terestin’ since Anastasia become sailin’ master of the 
craft than when I was to sea.” 

He tilted his chair again and stared reminiscently 
before him. 


30 


THE RIVER ROAD 


Ozra sneered. “Didn’t know ye was sich a 
wimmin’s champeen, Cap’n! Didn’t know ye was so 
int’rested.” 

Captain Caleb chuckled, as his gaze wandered over 
to where their usual checker battle was being 
fought by Captain Lem and Captain Tony. Oblivi¬ 
ous of all about them, the two old salts sat there in 
the sunlight in an appropriate frame, for just above 
them on the wall was a model of a barkentine plow¬ 
ing along on a bas-relief sea, with all sails drawing 
and “a bone in her teeth’’—just such a vessel as 
that from which either of them might have stepped. 

While that sturdy old river packet, the Julia f was 
laying at its berth at Tompkins’ wharf, between trips, 
Captain Lem was stealing an hour or two for this, 
his favorite diversion, with Captain Tony. 

Tony “warn’t sech shakes as a checker player,” 
opined Captain Lem, but such as he was, he was 
better than none—which opinion was shared by the 
grizzled Tony, though applied to his antagonist. 

Idly, and before he answered the gloomy Ozra, 
Captain Caleb wondered how long it would be before 
that checker game would end and the usual heated 
wrangle would occur. For always one did occur, 
which wrangle, however, in no wise interfered with 
the resumption of the game the next day. 

Captain Caleb smiled a bit, a tolerant kindly smile 
as he heard the exuberant laughter coming from the 
window, and there was something of pity in his glance 
as he watched the landlubberly efforts of the girl and 
the youth with the marine glass. 




THE RIVER ROAD 


31 


41 By godfrey, I ’low somebuddy had ought ter help 
them two young periwinkles,” he said musingly. 
“Likely they’ll begin to think the world’s more upside 
down than ’tis, effen they wiggle that thar glass about 
much more.” 

“Huh!” was Ozra’s comment, and the sneer that 
so often twisted his wizened face became more notice¬ 
able. 

“Ladies’ man, be ye? Thought ye warn’t so 
strong fer ’em sence they got theirselves voted inter 
this here sailors’ club. Wimmin, says I, hain’t no 
manner of use in a club—but—” 

He snapped his suspender viciously. 

“All I could say or do, couldn’t keep ’em out, 
what with a few softies like you, afeerd to up 
and say ‘no’, when th’ wimmin in this town come ter 
think they must have an auxil’ry to the Neptune 
Club—” 

Again he spat violently, and settled himself back 
in the hard-bottomed chair. 

Softly chuckling, Captain Caleb leaned forward. 
He coughed behind his hand, and looked about fur¬ 
tively, before he replied in a rumbling whisper. 

“Now don’t git me wrong, Oz. Ye say ye’re not 
interested in wimmin; nuther be I, not partic’lar. 
Jest harden’d to ’em ye might say, sence they horn- 
swiggled us inter this here auxil’ry idee.” 

“Huh!” Ozra expressed his favorite opinion with 
a snort. But before Captain Caleb could say more, 
his attention was drawn to the window. A girlish 
voice was complaining plaintively. 



32 


THE RIVER ROAD 


“Oh, I do wish I could see better! I do want to 
see that lightship! I thought maybe I could get a 
glimpse of that silent man we’ve heard so much 
about, who keeps it. Jack! I wonder if—” 

She turned to glance about the room behind her, 
and her eyes caught those of Captain Caleb. There 
was something so human, so heart-warming about 
Captain Caleb that a first look inspired confidence. 
Without stopping to think about it, the girl whose 
soft chiffon gown was blown so foggily about her 
by the crisp sea air that came through the windows, 
smiled straight into the eyes of the doughty captain. 
He shoved back his chair as he rose. 

“Mebby I can help ye some, ma’am, although I’m 
afeered the lightship’s a leetle too far ter fh’ west’- 
ard,” he told her as he strolled toward the window. 
“Not much used to sea folks or implements, be ye?” 

The girl shook her head. 

“No, we’re strangers here, Jack and I,” she told 
him. “We’re stopping at Mrs. Lou Barzum’s house, 
and they told us how interesting this place was, so 
we just strolled in to look about. I hope we’re not 
intruding,” as her eyes sought out the checker 
players, who were oblivious to any but themselves, 
their game having reached the point where the 
wrangle was inevitable. Then she took in the smoke- 
shrouded figure of Hemingway in his distant corner. 
“You see,” she hesitated, then—“They told us at 
Mrs. Barzum’s that this was not exclusively a man’s 
club—that a woman’s auxiliary had recently been 
organized, and we thought that—” 


THE RIVER ROAD 


33 


Captain Caleb smiled understanding^ as he took 
the glass from the girl’s hands and began to adjust 

it. 

“Ye thought, I reckon, after ye got in here with 
these old hulks, that ye’d have to use a spy glass 
to find ’em. Wal, it hain’t alius so—more’s the 
pity,” he ruminated with a trace of bitterness that 
brought surprise to the girl’s eyes. 

“Why—why,” she exclaimed, “don’t you like 
women in your club?” She started to back away, but 
Captain Caleb put out a protesting hand. 

“Some wimmin, Miss—er Miss-” 

“Dorothy—Dorothy Merrill, of New York,” she 
completed. “And this is my friend, Jack Billings.” 

“Miss Merrill,” thanked the captain, with an 
appreciative eye for the girl’s fresh young beauty. 
“But I kinder ’low ye hain’t made the acquaintance 
of all the wimmin in this town, have ye?” There 
was a twinkle in his keen blue eyes as he finished. 
Again the girl shook her head. 

“No,” she said. “Very few. But I should like 
to know more of them. Some of them are so—so 
quaint.” 

Captain Caleb’s grin broadened. 

“They be all of that—some of ’em,” he admitted 
with a nod. 

So interested were the visitors in Captain Caleb’s 
manipulation of the marine glass that they did not 
notice the little wizened, parchment-skinned Ozra 
Hemingway, who had left his chair and sidled toward 
them. In spite of his announced contempt for 



34 


THE RIVER ROAD 


women or anything appertaining to them, it would 
appear that the announcement was not wholly true. 
There was just one thing in the world Ozra Heming¬ 
way loved more than he loved himself. He loved 
to hear himself talk, and to talk there must be some¬ 
thing to talk about. One reason for his present can¬ 
tankerous mood was that his topics for the day had 
been exhausted before the post office crowd at the 
morning gathering. They had not even shown in¬ 
terest in his latest bit of gunfire about how “True 
Tisdale hadn’t come in off the lightship the night 
before—not at all—and that that there snippy young 
wife of his’n had set out on the stringpiece of the 
wharf until all hours, sayin’ as how she was waitin’ 
for True, but ef ye should ask him—!!!” 

Ozra Hemingway edged forward to hear what 
Captain Caleb was saying to the club visitors. It 
was barely possible that he might find fresh fuel for 
his fires. One never could tell, and these here city 
folks that come up every summer and made Bayport 
just one wild place, might be expected to furnish the 
town crier with something with which to regale his 
post office hearers. With a start Dorothy turned 
from peering through the glass as she heard his 
whining voice at hand. She had been chatting with 
Captain Caleb. 

“Then I was not misinformed,” she said. “There 
are women in this club—Oh, I think it’s a wonderful 
idea—” 

“In it?” Ozra Hemingway exploded with a snarl. 
“In it? They’re the hull durn thing!” 



THE RIVER ROAD 


35 


Undeterred by Captain Caleb’s menacing frown, 
the small man edged nearer. Dorothy lifted sur¬ 
prised eyebrows at the unexpected interruption, and 
Jack Billings was undoubtedly displeased by the 
manner of the newcomer’s address. 

“I don’t believe we’ve met you, Mr.—” he began 
coldly. Captain Caleb chuckled at the snap in the 
little pessimist’s eyes. 

“But ye’ve met him,” insisted Ozra, indicating the 
big captain with his gnarled hand. “And he’s 
nobuddy—” 

The captain’s sides shook with laughter. It was 
good to see Hemingway discomfited. “Oh, yes I 
be, Miss Merrill,” he retorted good-naturedly, 
addressing the girl. He stuck his thumbs in his arm¬ 
holes, rocked to and fro on his heels, and his eyes 
twinkled. “I clean forgot to tell ye, but I’m Captain 
Caleb Fish. I’m a consider’ble figger in these parts.” 

“Huh! So’s a coal barge.” Ozra was irrepres¬ 
sible. 

“ ’Druther be a coal barge than a durned old he- 
catamoran. Now, as I was telling ye, Miss Dorothy 
—er, Miss Merrill—” 

With a start and a clutch at the arms of Jack 
Billings and Captain Caleb, Dorothy turned at the 
sound of the verbal explosion from the far side of 
the room. 

“Hey! Blast ye, where ye steering tuh?” 

The wrangle between Captain Tony and Captain 
Lem had begun. Captain Caleb put out a protecting 
hand. 


36 


THE RIVER ROAD 


‘‘Now, don’t ye go a-mindin’ them old fellers, 
ma’am—they hain’t to blame. It seems that cussin’ 
an’ high words is jest a part of their enjy’ment when 
they gets to checkerin’.” But toward the two players, 
he turned a heavy frown. “Hey there, Lem,” he 
called. “Ye’re inside the three-mile limit! Remem¬ 
ber where ye be!” 

Captain Lem subsided with a low rumble, but 
there was a motion of rebellion in the way he clapped 
his old cap down over his ear and made his next 
move. Dorothy looked her surprise as she saw Cap¬ 
tain Caleb stride across the room and remove the 
other’s cap. He slammed it down upon the floor 
with finality. Captain Lem continued to mumble, as 
he cast reproachful glances at big Captain Caleb, but 
the fury of the volcano was gone. Slowly he made 
his next move as the other returned to the window. 

“Ye mustn’t mind him, ma’am,” he explained to 
the girl who was beginning to fear that she had 
wandered into the wrong place, in spite of the assur¬ 
ances she had had from her boarding house mistress 
that the Neptune Club was the big sight of the village 
and that it extended its hospitality to all. “Ye see, 
he’s given to cussin’, is Cap’n Lem, in ’special 
when Cap’n Tony makes some move down 
on that darn checkerboard that hain’t ‘shipshape and 
Bristol fashion!’ His wife Nancy has mighty nigh 
broke him of th’ habit, but the only way he can cotch 
himself when she’s not about is to keep his hat on, 
and then when he feels like breakin’ out, to take hit 
ofl and hold hit in his hand. He kinder forgot this 



THE RIVER ROAD 


37 


time, I ’low—that’s why I kinder had to make him 
remember to take off his cap. He says ma’am, hit’s 
a wonderful preventative.” 

Captain Caleb’s chuckle as he apologized for his 
club member was infectious. It was joined in even 
by Captain Tony. But Captain Lem did not chuckle, 
nor did Ozra Hemingway, probably because the 
latter had long since forgotten how, unless it was at 
some far worse discomfiture of another than was 
now the embarrassment of the checker player. 

But Captain Caleb was not through with Captain 
Lem. This was too splendid an occasion for teasing, 
and Captain Caleb had not enough forgotten his boy¬ 
hood to fail to indulge himself in this, his favorite 
pastime. Without glancing at Captain Lem, and as 
though the other were an absentee, he went on, in his 
voice that would have carried to a far greater dis¬ 
tance than the length of the Neptune Club room be¬ 
tween Captain Lem and himself: 

“Yessir,” he said ruminatively, but with evident 
enjoyment. “Cap’n Lem’s got in a peck of trouble 
one time and another through his cussin’. Was one 
time not so long ago—ye see, he’s skipper of the old 
Julia, and as sech he collects fares from passengers. 
One of them big portly grand dame ladies from the 
summer hotel at the P’int come ’board at Harwich 
for passage down ter Bayport, and as she was passin’ 
along the gangplank, a deckhand he yells out, ‘Stir 
yer stumps!’ ’Course, the lady was peeved, and she 
complained to Cap’n Lem, thar. Lie was mad, as 
becomes a good skipper when a member of th’ fair 


38 


THE RIVER ROAD 


sex is insulted, and he took prompt and effective 
measures, as th’ newspaper writers say, to punish the 
culprit. So he sings out to him somethin’ like this, 
ma’am: ‘Billy, yer dod-gasted son of a sea cook, 
what in th’ Sam Hill do ye mean by talkin’ thata’ 
way to a lady? Why, ye ornery lump of galley 
grease, I’ll—” 

Captain Caleb halted. The twinkle in his eyes 
made them glow like blue pools where the sunlight 
reflects sharpest. “Wal,” he hesitated a moment, 
“leastways hit wa’n’t ’zactly in them words he said 
hit. I don’t ’low yer imagination could go so far, 
ma’am, as ter guess what he did say, but hit’ll give ye 
an idee that Captain Lem’s some strong in his lang- 
widge. But he’s all right otherwise,” he offered con¬ 
descendingly. “He’s all right with his cussin’, too, 
so long as he keeps his hat in his hand.” 

Dorothy Merrill put out her hand to Captain 
Caleb Fish. 

“I think I must be going now,” she said, as she 
noticed the uneasy manner in which Captain Lem 
was squirming in his arm chair beneath the barken- 
tine. “It’s been so fine of you to allow us to come in 
at all and we have so enjoyed the talk and the view 
from the window. Perhaps some other time—” 

Ozra Hemingway broke in with a bitterness that 
seemed to be without cause. 

“Oh, ye’ll be cornin’ agin,” he remarked. “The 
wimmin’ll see ter that. Most any of them in town’ll 
fetch ye—any of them ’ceptin’ one and she—” 

He stopped with a little jump as the strong fingers 


THE RIVER ROAD 


39 


of Captain Caleb found their way between his fifth 
and sixth ribs. Ozra Hemingway was not sufficiently 
padded not to feel the full force of those warning 
lingers. He subsided with his familiar: “Huh!” 

As the girl crossed the club room floor, followed 
by Jack Billings, Captain Lem Tooker did an unpre¬ 
cedented thing. 

His checker game was all but finished. It bade 
fair to be an exciting finish, too. But with one sweep 
of his big brown hand, he scrambled the checkers, 
red and black men alike, into the center of the board. 
He reached down to the floor for his battered hat 
and clapped it firmly on to his head. Then he leaned 
back in his chair and with both hands on the table 
in front of him, he called in his softest rumble: 

“Jest wait a minute, won’t ye, ma’am? Ye’re a 
stranger here’bouts, and I don’t want ye to git no 
wrong impressions. I jest want to say somethin’ 
afore ye go, if ye hain’t in a hurry.” 

Surprised, the two visitors stopped midway to the 
door. Captain Caleb chuckled audibly. Well—it 
took a pretty girl to get a rise out of Captain Lem 
that-a way! He wondered what was coming. 

“Don’t ye pay no ’tention to that old tarfinger, 
ma’am,” went on Captain Lem, pointing a stern 
brown finger at Captain Caleb. “He’s jest tryin’ to 
draw ’tention away from hisself so’s he won’t show 
his ig’rance. Ye never knew Captain Caleb Fish, 
likely, afore this morning, so I considers hit my duty 
ter tell ye about him.” 

Fof just a moment, the girl hesitated, a bit discon- 


40 


THE RIVER ROAD 


certed, but the twinkles in the old seafarers’ eyes, as 
she glanced from one to another, reassured her. 

“I think he’s splendid,” she hesitated, “and—” 

“And probably a fine sea captain, too, eh? Huh!” 
Captain Lem stopped long enough to once more re¬ 
move his cap by way of emphasis. “Well, now I kin 
tell ye—t’want so long ago—two—three weeks, 
likely, Captain Tony—” turning to his aged 
checker antagonist, who nodded assent. 

“Three, I reckon,” agreed the man whose day’s 
sport had been spoiled, but whose face showed he 
expected recompense in what was to come. 

“Yes, ’t’war three weeks ago,” Captain Lem 
stopped to shake the ash from his dead pipe. “Ye 
see, Cap’n Caleb thar, he thinks he’s some navigator. 
Maybe he was when he went ter sea, but, wal, if he 
had to pass his examination now to get into this sea¬ 
man’s club, I hain’t saying we wouldn’t be shy a 
member.” 

It was Captain Caleb’s turn to begin to look 
anxious. Lie shifted from one foot to the other, but 
he could not escape. As the self-appointed host of 
the visitors, he must stick it out. 

“It was this way,” went on the now unperturbed 
Captain Lem. “He was out in Cap’n Hen Berry’s 
catboat, and the two on ’em was pluggin’ along ’fore 
the wind, and abraggin’ ’bout their navigatin’. 
Cap’n Caleb was at th’ wheel and was a-sayin’, ‘Yes 
sir, I know every darn rock in this river,’ and—and 
jest then they hit one, shebang! and Cap’n Caleb 


THE RIVER ROAD 


41 


said: ‘And here’s one on ’em now!’ Navigator! 
Huh!” 

Captain Lem threw back his head in a wild guffaw, 
as he rolled in his chair and clapped Captain Tony on 
the shoulders. Captain Caleb, his pleasant big face 
the color of the sunset that was a nightly sight from 
the club room windows, touched the girl’s arm 
lightly. 

‘‘Come on,” he whispered hoarsely, “he hain’t re¬ 
sponsible. ’T’wan’tso!” 

Captain Lem sat straight up in his chair, as he 
clapped his hat on his head, only to remove it again 
as quickly. 

“ ’T’wan’t so, hey?” he snapped, but the vigor of 
his speech changed to a chortle of delight as he saw 
Captain Caleb’s visage. “’T’wan’t so? Huh! 
Well, then, how ’bout that time you and the Spicer 
boy was out around Goshen Island, and the fog come 
up? Hey? Didn’t ye git out yer chart and steer by 
compass? Ye made port all right, but what did that 
Spicer boy have to tell? Hadn’t ye been navigatin’ 
Goshen Sound with a chart of Narragansett Bay?” 

Even the girl had to join in the laugh that went 
up after that, though she stopped immediately as she 
saw the reddened countenance of the man who had 
made her feel at home in this club of men into which 
she had stumbled under the impression that she 
would find a mixed gathering. 

“By godfrey!” muttered Captain Caleb. “How 
could I see the derned old chart? I left my glasses 
to hum—” 


42 


THE RIVER ROAD 


Thoroughly satisfied with his revenge, Captain 
Lem turned to his partner. 

“Think ye kin play a game now, without 
cheatin’?” he asked, as he began to arrange the 
checkers in the big black squares. 

Outside, on the cracked flagged sidewalk before 
the club house door, Dorothy Merrill and her com¬ 
panion bade Captain Caleb Fish good-by. 

“You don’t know how much I thank you,” she 
said. “You made me feel so—well, so not un¬ 
wanted. And it’s all so fine. You must have such 
wonderful times, don’t you?” 

Captain Caleb grinned. 

“Well, we have an auxil’ry,” he commented, with 
a meaning that was lost on the girl who did not as 
yet know the women of Bayport. 

Ozra Hemingway, in gloomy fashion, was gaz¬ 
ing from the window when he returned. The checker 
game had reached a point of danger as he could see 
by the way Captain Lem’s hat was pulled down over 
his grizzled front hair. He sat down to watch. 

“That thar is a derned nice girl,” he offered. 
“Seems likely she’ll be a credit to th’ town when she 
gits ’quainted.” 

No reply from the battlers with the red and black. 

From his vantage point in the wdndow, Ozra 
Hemingway ejected his scornful “Huh!” 

“Wimmin,” said the little misogynist for the third 
time that morning, “is pizen. ’Tisn’t more’n likely 
she’s no diffr'nt from the rest. Young, too, 
and—” 


THE RIVER ROAD 


43 


“And being young and pretty is a crime in yer 
eyes, hain’t it, Hemingway?” observed Captain 
Caleb as he arose and crossed to the other and stood 
looking down at him sternly. “No need to say who 
ye’re thinkin’ of, but I’m jest a-warnin’ ye, ye’re in 
shallow water when ye go making remarks in this 
club, and—” 

“Wimmin’s champeen!” sneered Ozra. “Ye 
can’t scare me, Caleb Fish—I’ll say what I’m a-mind 
ter, and when I say why don’t True Tisdale’s wife 
treat him like a married woman orter, why I—” 

Captain Caleb Fish towered over the smaller man 
who, with small success, valiantly tried not to cower. 
He thundered at him. 

“And who says she don’t, hey? Who says she 
don’t! Ye’re in shallow water, Hemingway. Ye’d 
better git back into the channel. And if I hear ye—” 

Ozra Hemingway turned to take up the marine 
glass. Without doubt, he did not care to continue 
the discussion further with Captain Caleb. But as 
he stalked toward the door the latter flung out his 
last word: 

“Better keep yer post office gossip outer here, 
Hemingway,” he advised. “Hit hain’t noways 
healthy. And Martha Tisdale’s name, too! She’s 
good to look at—and young. And them’s her main 
sins, so fer as I can see.” 




CHAPTER IV 

F OR generations the captaincy of the lightship 
at Ripping Reef, that saw-toothed, treacher¬ 
ous ridge of rocks off the mouth of Bayport 
Harbor, had been in one family. As Captain Hen 
Berry once put it: u Th’ Tisdales had been captains 
of the lightship ever since time.” 

In the memory of two decades of Bayport folks, 
old Silas Tisdale had been master of the vessel that 
rode at anchor out there, marking the rocks that 
meant death to any vessel coming up on them, and 
of the lights which were the beacon for sailormen 
far out to sea. 

When Silas Tisdale died, it was but natural that 
his son, Trueman Tisdale, should be his successor, 
especially as he was accounted one of the best sailor- 
men along the coast, a fact that had not been over¬ 
looked by the United States Lighthouse Board, when 
the subject of a new captain came before it. 

“An’ right desarvin’ of hit he war, too,” agreed 
Captain Caleb to his cronies in the Neptune Club, 
“seein’ th’ trainin’ he had, for there hain’t many 
sailormen nowadays kin boast of bein’ a cabin boy at 
twelve, a sailor-before-th’ mast at seventeen, and 
master’s papers at twenty-one.” 

Ozra Hemingway, with a word, as always, to say 

44 


THE RIVER ROAD 


45 


in disagreement with whomsoever was the speaker, 
slapped his suspender against his skinny breast, and 
spat into the sawdust-filled box that was doing duty 
as his personal cuspidor. 

“They do say True Tisdale is sorter queer—” 
he insinuated. 

Captain Caleb snorted his contempt as he fixed the 
small wizened ship’s cook with his keen eye, 
“Queer, be he? Wal, he hain’t no hand to gab, ef ye 
mean that—but I’m thinkin’ hit wouldn’t nowise do 
some others here’bouts no harm ter be queer in th’ 
same way.” 

Ozra subsided, but not without a characteristic 
lift to his eyebrows, which always meant that there 
was much that he and he alone could tell, should he 
be so minded. 

In a way, the club pessimist was right. Trueman 
Tisdale, among some, had come to be accounted 
queer, principally for the reason set forth by his 
champion, Captain Caleb Fish. The life of the sea 
had made him quiet, even reticent. A man does not 
come to take life lightly when he is accustomed to 
facing dangers of the deep daily and nightly as duty 
routine. Nor does he wear his heart upon his sleeve, 
though this does not mean that that heart has be¬ 
come atrophied. Could those who criticised have 
been able to look deep into the soul of Trueman 
Tisdale as he stood out on his lightship deck during 
his long hours of lonely watching, they would have 
been surprised at the gentleness, the forbearance, the 
deeply poetical feeling of which the man was 


46 


THE RIVER ROAD 


capable, and which the life he led had made to him 
a sort of religion; a philosopher, too, and one to 
whom patience was a virtue. 

Tall, rugged, blue-eyed—a perfect specimen of 
that type of sailor who has been brought to perfec¬ 
tion in no section as in New England—Trueman 
Tisdale was a man to attract attention wherever he 
went. It was but natural, then, that when he chose 
to go on his course, in his own quiet way, paying 
small attention to either the petty talk of the vil¬ 
lagers, or to their opinions, he should come to be re¬ 
marked among some of them as “queer.” 

To most of the Bayporters, in especial to such as 
Ozra Hemingway, and Trueman Tisdale’s own step¬ 
mother, Ma Tisdale, as she was called by the entire 
community, silence was distinctly not a virtue. To 
others it was, to say the least, a relief. And more 
than once, had it been known, it was to Trueman 
Tisdale, with his clear eyes and his deep thinking and 
way of getting at the heart of a matter and its 
solution that other Bayporters had come with their 
difficulties. 

Withal, though, Trueman Tisdale had only on one 
occasion gone contrary to the advice of both friends 
and critics. That was when he had married. 

They had argued; they had pleaded—they had 
prophesied—but ignoring them equally, Trueman 
Tisdale had quietly gone about having his own way, 
and had married Martha Rogers, the motherless 
daughter of a shiftless ne’er-do-well fisherman. 

Not that there was anything inherently wrong 


THE RIVER ROAD 


47 


with Martha. It was just that she was generally not 
approved by the ruling members of Bayport’s church 
and social set who lived so closely to the rules of 
conduct laid down unerringly by such Puritanical 
sharp-tongued arbiters as Ma Tisdale. 

No one could have said exactly why Martha was 
disapproved, but Captain Caleb Fish probably had 
the right of the matter when he told Ozra Heming¬ 
way that her sins consisted in being young and 
good to look at. Those were sins, too, that it was 
difficult for many a matron—and maid, too—of 
Bayport to forgive. 

Old Pete Rogers had dropped out of Bayport’s 
existence some time before the marriage of his 
daughter to Trueman Tisdale. Some said he was 
dead. Martha sighed when she heard it, and went 
on hoping that it was not true, and that some 
day he would come back to her. For whatever 
the old fisherman might have been, however his 
ways may have been such that his daughter could 
have no social position in her home town, she loved 
him. 

Martha Rogers had had little to love in the short 
years of her life—a fact which probably accounted 
all the more for the passionate adoration she be¬ 
stowed on her husband, for it was with the eagerness 
of a starved heart that the young girl had gone to the 
man who offered her the first gift of disinterested 
devotion she had ever known. Martha Rogers, 
pretty and alone, had not wanted for the attention 
that one in her position is sure to have. In general, 


48 


THE RIVER ROAD 


though, the attentions that had been showered on 
her, the admiration the youth of the town had be¬ 
stowed on her, had been offered with a sort of shame¬ 
facedness, a clandestine suggestion that she had not 
failed to sense, however eager she may have been 
for the attentions that are the rightful homage any 
young and pretty girl may expect. 

It was Captain Hen Berry who came forward as 
Martha Tisdale’s champion one day at the post 
office where the usual crowd was gathered waiting 
for the opening of the mail—a ceremony as far as 
old Jerry Decker, the postmaster was concerned, for 
it was with a deliberation that might better have 
fitted a languorous Southerner instead of a grizzled 
Grand Army man that the old soldier put one letter 
or post card at a time into its rightful cubby hole, 
stopping to scan not only addresses, but usually to 
gather a hint of what the communication might be 
about. 

Martha Tisdale had fluttered into the center of 
the somewhat hostile-eyed crowd, demure and pretty 
in her crisp pink organdie, with the air her clothes 
had, even though it was known that she made them 
herself. The discussion of the affairs of the 
Auxiliary which was at full tilt came to a sudden 
halt at her appearance. Ma Tisdale’s nose went up 
in the air a trifle higher as Martha unlocked the Tis¬ 
dale box—a right Ma had claimed as her own for 
years before the appearance of another in her home 
who had more claim to being its mistress. Mehitable 
Sands, the spinster sister of Jonas Sands, another 


THE RIVER ROAD 


49 


self-appointed guardian of the public morals, nudged 
Ma significantly. 

Unheeding, Martha turned and departed, her eyes 
on the circular which she was opening. 

Mehitable sniffed. 

“Too uppity since she married True Tisdale to 
notice common folks, eh?” she rasped. 

Captain Hen turned his head from the paper he 
was perusing and looked Mehitable up and down 
over the tops of his square-framed glasses. His 
hand turned instinctively to his whiskers. 

“What would ye have done had she took notice, 
Mehitable?” he asked. “Snubbed her, most likely, 
and that poor gal’s jest had about enough of 
snubbin’, I cal’late, eh?” 

Miss Sands’ sniff became almost a snort. She 
started to speak, but Ma Tisdale took the words 
out of her mouth. 

“So ye’re jest a fool like the rest of the men, are 
ye, Hen Berry?” she snapped. “Takin’ up for the 
daughter of that no-good Rogers! Humph! That 
flip, little empty-headed no-account, I call her; not 
the wife for any level-headed man—” 

Captain Hen’s eyes shifted to view the group of 
tittering young women who were undisguisedly enjoy¬ 
ing the flaying of the prettier young woman who was 
strolling down the street. 

“What you wimmin got agin Martha Tisdale, 
anyhow?” he asked, his eyes and accents taking in the 
whole of the gathered gossipers. “I’ll tell ye, if ye 
want to know! Martha Rogers up and married 


50 


THE RIVER ROAD 


True Tisdale, that's why, and he was the best ketch 
in this hull town! Huh!” 

He turned to stump away, unheeding the baleful 
glances that were cast at his retreating figure. 

“Fools!” Ma Tisdale found voice to cast her 
shaft at the unheeding Captain Berry who was hurry¬ 
ing oh to catch up with Martha Tisdale. “Fools!” 
she repeated, as the post office group saw the stumpy 
old captain fall in step with the girl who turned to 
give him a smile of eager greeting. “All men! 
Caught by a pretty face! Beats all, though,” she 
bewailed as she turned to her sympathizers, “how a 
big sensible man like True lets himself be took in by 
a pretty face and a scheming head.” 

Mehitable Sands’ head wagged vigorously on her 
long scrawny neck as she agreed. 

“Doll’s face; doll’s morals, I say,” she offered 
lugubriously. “There hain’t no such thing.” 

“Tush!” It was the voice of Mrs. Caleb Fish, 
who looked up from her sister Myra’s letter and the 
long description of the twins’ illness to offer her bit. 
“Tush, Mehitable! Ye’re always looking for onions 
in the sugar bowl! Martha’s jest a girl like any other. 
My part, I think we had ought to vote her into the 
club.” 

Mehitable’s outraged gasp was echoed by Ma 
Tisdale and in lesser degree by the lesser lights about 
her. 

“Into the Auxiliary!” It was almost a scream. 
“Anastasia Fish, are ye clean looney! Old Pete 
Rogers’ girl?” 


THE RIVER ROAD 


51 


Mrs. Anastasia Fish shook out the folds of her 
ample gown over her ample figure, as she readjusted 
her nose glasses. “Oh, well, all right, have it your 
own way,” she answered with a shrug of her 
shoulders. “I don’t know, after all, but what she’ll 
thrive just as well on the smell of her own kitchen 
as she would on the kind of milk of human kindness 
that sloshes around in the Auxiliary.” 

As usual, it was Ozra Hemingway who had the 
last word. Across his wizened face passed what he 
firmly believed to be a smile—a knowing smile. 

“Ye jest wait,” he prophesied, with a wag of his 
head. “That’s all I’ ve got to say—jest wait.” 

For the first time in many a moon, Ma Tisdale’s 
vigorous nod agreed with him who had been her 
chief antagonist. Ma Tisdale wasn’t caring where 
she got allies as far as Martha was concerned, for 
Trueman Tisdale had married Martha against her 
bitter opposition and she was in no mind either then 
or ever to become reconciled to the situation that 
had deposed her from head of the Tisdale house¬ 
hold, which position she had held during long years 
of the lifetime of Trueman’s father, and had held 
on as housekeeper for her step-son until the coming 
of Martha. 

For some time now Trueman had been able to stop 
his stepmother’s outbreaks in his presence, for Ma 
Tisdale had known he meant it when he had told her 
in his quiet, forceful way, with that level glance she 
knew so well: 

“Martha is my wife, Ma. I treat my wife with 


52 


THE RIVER ROAD 


respect—others must do the same. She suits me, 
and—er—if you’re not suited, why—” 

Even while she seethed inwardly, Ma Tisdale 
knew, as Mrs. Anastasia Fish put it, “which side h^r 
bread was buttered on,” and so, though she put a 
curb on her tongue whenever Trueman was home— 
which wasn’t often as he spent much of his time 
aboard his lightship—but when she was alone with 
Martha or with her bosom companions, such as 
Mehitable Sands—Well, there were more ways than 
one of making the unwanted little bride’s life 
miserable. 

Ma Tisdale wasn’t Ma Tisdale for nothing, nor 
had she gained her reputation for shrewishness with¬ 
out having given much thought and practice to the 
tongue that ever stood her in stead. Indeed, she felt 
not only relief, but got positive enjoyment from all 
her opportunities to talk over Martha’s short¬ 
comings. 

So, however much his neighbors may have 
caviled, however much his sharp-tongued step¬ 
mother had argued, and railed and plead with angry 
tears to aid her, Trueman Tisdale had pleased him¬ 
self and married the girl who had won his gentle, 
simple heart. He had brought her to live in the 
little white house down on the point overlooking the 
ocean, the quaint home down the shore road from 
Bayport that had housed generations of Tisdales, 
and from the windows and small porch of which the 
lightship could be seen across the spread of waters 
as it rocked at anchor. 

Martha Tisdale was proud of that little home— 


THE RIVER ROAD 


53 


almost as proud of it as she was of the handsome 
sailor man she had come to love so deeply, but of 
whom, sometimes, she was still a bit afraid. It 
seemed to Martha these times that she had never 
been able to creep as deeply into the heart of her hus¬ 
band as she wished. Emotional herself, demonstra¬ 
tive, too, in the way of a stray kitten that is starved 
for affection, Martha Tisdale often wished that 
Trueman would show her in some other way than 
his quiet-matter-of-course fashion that he loved her. 

Could she have peeped into the heart of the man 
she had married, she would have seen herself en¬ 
throned there. But Trueman Tisdale was not the 
man to show what meant more to him than the wide 
world. Marriage to him was a sacrament, a literal 
taking for better or for worse, but in his simple soul 
there never crept the thought that there could be any 
worse where Martha was concerned. 

Even during the days of his courtship, he had 
shown his love principally by the brightness of his 
eye and the lightness of his step, and after marriage 
he had set about living as though he were newly born, 
and that part of that new birth included Martha, 
his wife, the one big thing that made life worth liv¬ 
ing. 

Had he but been able to put this in words! But 
Martha Tisdale would look at him with those big 
adoring eyes; would wish for a gentle caress—a 
touch on the cheek—but they did not come. True¬ 
man’s perfunctory farewell kiss when he left her to 
go to the lightship was the greatest emotional heights 
to which he had ever risen. 


54 


THE RIVER ROAD 


Still, though love was not being fulfilled the way 
the romantically dreaming girl had always believed 
it would be, should it come to her, the old fisherman’s 
daughter would have been supremely happy had it 
not been for her incubus, Ma Tisdale, and the hun¬ 
dreds of petty ways she found to make the young 
wife uncomfortable. And one other thing— 
accustomed as she had always been from childhood 
to knowing herself an outsider where the social life 
of Bayport was concerned, she had fondly believed 
that, on her marriage to one as firmly established as 
Trueman Tisdale, that all this would be changed. 
Wherein she reckoned without Ma Tisdale, or 
Mehitable Sands, or Ozra Hemingway, or of a 
dozen lesser lights who so jealously guarded the por¬ 
tals of Bayport society in a way that would have 
done honor to arbiters of a society in a far more 
pretentious community. Once a fisherman’s 
daughter, always a fisherman’s daughter. Once the 
object of gossip, no matter how innocent she may 
have been in allowing herself to be admired, always 
so. Such had been the decree of Bayport’s up¬ 
holders of sanctity. 

So Martha Tisdale had ceased even her timid 
hesitating advances to be among the elect of the 
village, and settled down in her home on the point 
where her vigils over the lightship offshore were 
quite as unceasing as were those of the sturdy cap¬ 
tain of it whose clear blue eyes swept the alternating 
stormy and calm waters about him. 


CHAPTER V 


I X was a quaint home—but pretty. Summer 
visitors were certain to exclaim with delight, 
when they came over from the big hotel across 
the river, to stroll or ride down the river road for 
the view of the sea from that vantage point—and, 
perhaps, a glimpse of the lightship. 

One came upon the Tisdale house from a rounding 
curve. For about half way up the lane, after leaving 
the highway, beautiful poplar trees lined the walk. 
The trees were like sentinels—unbending sentinels, 
grave and dignified in their waxen-green uniforms. 
In their sturdy guardianship they were reminiscent 
of glistening frost and whirring winter winds. 

The house sat high so that the dust of the road 
seemed never to touch it. The front, while facing 
the sea and its rigors, was protected from blasty 
southeasters, by the high barrier of the little rocky 
knoll at the extreme point of the headland, and by a 
thin fringe of dwarfed cedars, which extended along 
the seaward front. The cedars paused for about a 
hundred feet directly opposite the dwelling, as if a 
beneficent nature intended the vista to be unob¬ 
structed—only to continue their scrawny growth 
when the house was passed. 


56 


THE RIVER ROAD 


Seaward the land dropped abruptly to a stony 
beach, which was reached by a wooden stairway, 
leading from a spacious platform at the top. This 
platform served as an observation station from 
where the marine view was beautiful. Passing to 
the eastward around the headland and toward the 
harbor, the land gradually sloped to the whiter sandy 
beach of a sheltered tiny cove, where Trueman Tis¬ 
dale moored his small boat when it was too rough 
to land at the outer beach. A pebbly pathway led 
windingly from the little cove to the house. 

The house itself was clean and white, and with 
an indescribable air of wisdom that houses that have 
set in one place for ages seem to acquire. It was a 
wise little old structure that had looked out over the 
sea, and witnessed the comings and goings of ships 
from the time of bravely sailing whalers with billow¬ 
ing sails down to the present day when it watched 
modern packets making their dignified way along the 
coast. 

Its two wings, at either end, were welcoming arms 
reaching out to sea in front, where ships passed, or 
toward the road in the rear where travelers 
journeyed. It had seen storms and sunshine; its 
weathered timbers said that—but it was trim and 
white and shipshape—just what one might expect irt 
the home of a careful sailing master. 

In the day-time, the green blinds toward the sea 
were closed, so that the sun should not heat the 
rooms that faced the glare of the sea and sunshine. 
In front of its porch, where Martha’s hammock was 


THE RIVER ROAD 


57 


swung, filled with her sewing and the magazines and 
books with which she loved to beguile herself, was 
a huge flat slab of stone. It was polished by the feet 
of generations, and kept washed and as spick as the 
“tidies” that adorned the upholstered backs of the 
chairs in the “sittin’ room”—chairs that had come 
across the seas, brought there at different times by 
the sailorman occupants from far parts of the earth, 
as also had been the mahogany furniture and the 
glazed blue dishes that still stood in such sprightly 
manner on the high sideboard in the little dining 
room. 

Summer visitors did not often get a glimpse of 
that furniture in the Tisdale home, for old Silas had 
put a stop to it a long time before, when some portly, 
importunate matrons had tried to buy it right out 
from under his feet. Nor did Trueman Tisdale 
open his home to outsiders, who had to content them¬ 
selves with the view from where the road ended and 
led up the private lane to the little house, and wonder 
if it could be possible that the interior fittings of the 
place could fit its exterior. 

On the left side of the land and extending around 
to the seaward side of the house, clumps of zinnias, 
four-o’clocks and neatly-made beds of asters, 
bordered with sweet alyssum, were set out, forming 
a riot of brilliant colors. Around the inside of the 
garden tall hollyhocks stood guard. Nature in¬ 
tended the garden as a stalking place of romance, its 
beauty speaking of a day when a long-gone young 


58 


THE RIVER ROAD 


New England housewife, in her honeymoon days, 
made her posey-bed of love looking out to sea. 

At the opposite end of the dwelling was the 
kitchen or truck garden, screened from the highway 
by rows of hollyhocks and sun flowers. This garden 
was Trueman Tisdale’s chief delight. 

It had not been in him to become a stay-at-home— 
to give up the sea altogether, when he was married. 
And so he had compromised by taking the position 
of captain of the lightship. 

Many an old salt would have thought this a sine¬ 
cure, but there were more lonely days and nights for 
Trueman Tisdale—anchored out in the sea in one 
small spot, when he had been used to skimming along 
on vast surfaces, communing with his own spirit and 
with the god of the deep—than he even admitted to 
himself. 

It would be unbearable if Trueman had had a less 
poetical nature. He loved books, and he loved the 
solitudes during which he analyzed his readings. To 
him there was much in the curl of a wave, the wing¬ 
ing of a bird, or the formation of a fleecy cloud. 
He loved his O. Henry, and to him there was a world 
of meaning in the sentence: “As I stood on the beach, 
a long row of portholes flashed by, in the night.” It 
was given him, as with the author, to see much that 
passed him by in the night. 

Excepting when on “shore leave,” most of True¬ 
man’s nights were spent aboard his lightship. And 
he knew nothing of the yearning with which the girl 
on the shore, whom he loved, was watching the 


THE RIVER ROAD 


59 


flickering lights far out there, while she swung in 
her hammock and dreamed of the things that might 
be, if her husband loved her more—but were not. 
She liked to realize that the blinds were thrown 
open wide—she loved to think of the windows as 
twinkling lights not intended to be sombered by 
opaque shades, but as shining signals of love that 
Trueman would see, and get their import. 

It was possible for Trueman to come ashore 
whenever he wished, according to his arrangement 
with the Government—and every third week was 
his to do with as he chose. No one knew of the 
quiet delight of those periods ashore—no one save 
the birds with which he communed as he worked in 
his kitchen garden and watched the flutter of 
Martha’s blue or pink ginghams as she flew about 
her housework, singing in the exuberance of her high 
spirits that the man she loved was near. The birds, 
and the clouds that formed their mother-of-pearl 
mountains over the sea in front of his home, were 
her inspiration. 

The red and yellow and purple reflections were 
settling themselves above the deep blue of the 
ocean’s horizon when Martha one June evening 
opened the blinds and arranged the shades of the 
windows that overlooked the water. Even in stormy 
weather she would arrange her unanswered love 
signals. But their being closed did not prevent many 
a trip to the little porch where she stood with hand 
curved over her eyes, watching for any sign from 
the lightship. 


60 


THE RIVER ROAD 


Martha sighed gently as she pulled back the white 
curtains that the breeze might blow through the 
rooms that had been darkened through the day. 
“To-morrow,” she whispered, and a glad light leapt 
into her eyes. To-morrow Trueman would come in 
off the lightship and he had promised her he would 
stay two whole days. There was so much she wanted 
to tell him, and so much she wanted to beg of him, 
too. Martha Tisdale had decided to risk all on one 
throw, and to-morrow she had decided that she 
would plead with her husband to leave the lightship 
and to come ashore and be with her all the time. 

As she stood for a moment at the white-case- 
mented window, she smiled at something she remem¬ 
bered—something that would be sure to please True¬ 
man. He had been experimenting in the garden— 
had planted something Ma Tisdale called “new¬ 
fangled stuff”—and he would be so delighted to 
know that it was up. Swiss chard, he called it, and 
she was anxious for it to grow so that she might ex¬ 
periment in cooking it for him. She must see how it 
was coming on. She turned from the window and 
a moment more the back door of the little house— 
the door leading directly from the kitchen with its 
low windows and wide spaces, its woven rugs and 
bright cushioned rush bottomed chairs—opened and 
she sped out into the garden. She bent over the tiny 
green shoots that were bravely struggling through 
the mold. Then she straightened up with a start. 

“Good evening,” came in a clear voice, an un¬ 
familiar, but welcomely pleasant voice to Martha 


THE RIVER ROAD 


61 


Tisdale who was not accustomed to be addressed in 
pleasant tones by a woman’s voice. She looked 
about her, and a smile came into her eyes as she saw 
the face of the girl who was peeping through the 
hollyhocks, smiling with one to match her own. 

“Good evening,” she answered, but with an odd 
little repression that the girl in the white frock who 
was framed in the hollyhocks did not miss. “Are 
you—er—” 

“Lost? Well, not exactly. Intruding, maybe, but 
not lost. I came of my own free will because I 
wanted to see this house I had heard so much about 
and I wanted to know you, too. You see—” 

“I see,” Martha Tisdale’s smile was rueful. 
“You had heard so much about me, too, and—you’re 
the boarder up at Mrs. Lou Barzum’s, ain’t you?” 

The other nodded. “Yes, I’m Dorothy Merrill, 
and I did want to see you because I’d heard—well, 
I’d heard you were so—lovely!” She looked closely 
at the flushed face of Martha Tisdale, as she turned 
it toward the bay as though for quick guidance. 
“He was right, too,” she went on eagerly. “He 
may be black, but he can see straight. Isn’t he a 
queer character, that old fish peddler?” 

Martha Tisdale’s expression changed. 

“Oh,” she remarked, with an odd inflection. “You 
mean Shiner!” There was something of relief in 
her tones, but a tinge of bitterness as she went on: 
“It was well for me, I imagine, that you got your 
information about me from him—there are others 
in Bayport—’* But she broke off quickly, and then, 


62 


THE RIVER ROAD 


after another glance at the eagerly friendly face of 
the other girl she finished timidly, as though in fear 
of a refusal: “Won’t you come around and sit on 
the porch awhile? The sunset’s lovely to-night.” 

It was just the invitation that Dorothy Merrill 
had hoped for when she left Jack at the boarding 
house after supper and had set off down the dusty 
road to the Tisdale home. She did want to know 
Martha Tisdale, and it was Dorothy Merrill’s way 
to go after what she wanted. She had not been 
exactly frank with Martha in telling her she had 
heard about her from Shiner, the negro fish peddler, 
who w T as one of the curiosities of the village—Shiner 
with his good nature who was never known to speak 
ill of anyone, whose quaint philosophy of life and 
advice were peddled from door to door with all the 
earnestness with which he peddled his fish. 

She had heard of her from other quarters, but, far 
from making her take the other side of the road, 
as had been the intention of her advisers, what she 
had heard had made her want all the more to know 
Martha Tisdale. Now that she saw her, Dorothy’s 
warm heart went out to the girl. What cats they 
were! Why, she didn’t believe one word of what 
they said! If there was ever a girl w T ho needed a 
friend, she decided impetuously, in her warm-hearted 
way, here was one. She wanted to be her friend. 
She determined she would be. 

For a good quarter of an hour, the two girls sat 
in the swing on the Tisdale porch, talking of the 


THE RIVER ROAD 


63 


many things which such girls can find to interest 
them, no matter how remote may be their interests. 

“You must be so happy here,” enthused Dorothy, 
as she at last arose when the twilight shades began 
to lengthen. “I don’t know when I’ve ever seen a 
house that was so—well, so booky.” 

She did not see the quick glance to seaward that 
Martha flashed. 

“Is the inside just as beautiful as the outside?” 
she went on. “They tell me you have some wonder¬ 
ful old things from, oh, everywhere!” 

Martha thought quickly. She knew both Ma 
Tisdale’s and Trueman’s aversion to showing their 
home, but Ma Tisdale was not at home. Surely this 
one—And such a lovely girl—She held out her hand 
to Dorothy. 

“Would you care to see it?” she asked. 

In a way to delight a home lover’s heart, Dorothy 
Merrill praised everything she saw in the little sit¬ 
ting room, from the hooked rugs to the clipper 
model with its bellied sails above the mantel shelf. 
But in particular she loved the little old fashioned 
piano that sat primly in its corner. She ran her 
fingers lightly over the yellow keys. 

“I suppose you amuse yourself playing a lot— 
and dreaming?” she asked, but Martha shook her 
head. 

“No,” she answered simply, “I—I never had 
much chance—” Her thoughts flashed back to the 
dingy fisherman’s cabin on the waterfront, with its 
clutter of nets and drying seaweed and odor of de- 


64 


THE RIVER ROAD 


caying fish that had been her home before Trueman 
Tisdale had married her and brought her here to 
live. But Dorothy was going on. She sat on the 
slippery piano stool and her fingers picked up a 
chord. 

“This piano,” she said, “why everything here 
reminds me of an old song. Let’s see, I used to 
know one—” 

Softly she began to sing 

“—and it touched the faded arras, 

And again I seemed to see 
The lovely lady sitting there, 

Her lover at her knee; 

And I saw him kiss her fair white hand, 

And oh, I heard him say: 

I shall love thee, dear, forever, 

Though the years may pass away—” 

There was a catch in Martha Tisdale’s throat as 
she listened. Did men love like that? She won¬ 
dered. Her eyes turned to the window through 
which she could catch the first glimpse of the lights 
Trueman Tisdale was starting, out aboard the light¬ 
ship. Dorothy Merrill did not hear her as she re¬ 
peated the last two lines in a whisper: 

“I shall love thee, dear, forever, 

Though the years may pass away—” 


CHAPTER VI 


“Oh, Santa Anna was a fighting man; 

Hurrah for Santa Anna! 

He fought all night and he fought all day— 

’Long the plains of Mex-i-co • • • 

’Long the plains of—” 

C APTAIN HEN BERRY stopped short in the 
chantey he was bellowing—the favorite 
chantey of the Neptuners—as he rolled up to 
the clubhouse door and, taking a nautical hitch in his 
loose trousers, his right hand clutching his whiskers, 
he let forth a hail: 

“Ship a-h-o-y! Helloo, ’b-o-a-r-d th’ brig!” 

The fat little sailorman listened for a moment; 
then cupped his hands for a louder challenge. 
“What ship’s that—” 

From inside came an answering hail, and Cap¬ 
tain Hen nodded satisfaction. 

“Ship Nancy Ann, Cap’n Scratch—three decks 
and no bottom—” 

Captain Hen again challenged. 

“Whar’ ye bound?” 

Without hesitation came the response: 

“Hong Kong, China, with a load er bung- 
holes— 1 ” 

The door at the top of the steps leading to the 
club rooms flew open and the burly form of Captain 

65 


66 


THE RIVER ROAD 


Caleb stood there as he gave his answer. He 
waved a big hand at Captain Hen, as he com¬ 
manded: 

“Come ’board, ye durned old fool—come 
’board.” 

Captain Hen rolled into the room and looked 
about him. It was deserted save for the two checker 
players, who were hard at their daily battle, and 
Captain Caleb Fish who felt it his duty to be on hand 
on such occasions, when an umpire was certain to be 
needed. 

As if the atmosphere of the club and the sight of 
his old shipmates reminded him of something he 
could not altogether forget, Captain Hen’s face 
clouded. 

Captain Caleb did the honors, with a mock dig¬ 
nity, pretending it was Captain Hen’s first visit to 
the club. 

“Haul up a cheer and sit,” he offered, with a wave 
of his big hand. “Glad to hav’ ye ’board.” 

Then noticing for the first time the rotund skip¬ 
per’s serious mein, his facetiousness disappeared. 

“What’s on yer mind, Hen?” 

The other chewed vigorously on his cud for a 
moment, and spat unerringly into the nearest 
cuspidor. The usual cheerful smile did not break 
out. 

“Wimmin,” announced Captain Hen, and he bit 
off the word with such unaccustomed vigor that 
Captain Caleb’s chuckle died in his throat. 

“By godfrey!” Again Captain Caleb’s favorite 


THE RIVER ROAD 


07 


sea oath. “Don’t ye go a’tellin’ me that Mehitable 
Sands—” He was stopped by a gesture from his 
friend. 

“Belay thar!” ordered Captain Hen. “I didn’t 
say wo- man—I said wimmin —and thar be some in 
this town—” 

Captain Caleb nodded his assent understandingly. 

“ ’Most important ye know how ter handle ’em,” 
he agreed, with a wise wagging of his head. “Now, 
there’s my Anastasia—trims ship like the meekest, 
best-behaved craft ye ever want to see, but—” he 
paused to give emphasis, “but in a seaway, blast if 
she kain’t take on like a blamed old shootin’ battle¬ 
ship.” 

Captain Caleb paused with a quick glance toward 
his old shipmate. 

“But that hain’t sayin’ which of ’em’s a-worryin’ 
you in particular this morning. Has Mehitable—” 

Captain Hen actually scowled, which was quite 
unusual for him. Nobody knew better than the 
members of the Neptune Club that if they wanted to 
see a black look replace the sunshine on the old 
sailor’s face, all they had to do was to mention the 
name of Mehitable Sands. 

The fact that Captain Hen had never married was 
in no-wise the fault of that angular spinster. Not 
even her famous deep-dish apple pies, so freely prof¬ 
fered—Captain Hen often wondered why “orner’y 
wimmin were sech bully good cooks”—to say noth¬ 
ing of her friendship so generously held out, had 
ever been able to soften the heart of the former sea 


68 


THE RIVER ROAD 


captain, as far as was concerned the gangling 
Mehitable with her serpent’s tongue. 

“Livin’ with Mehitable would be some like takin’ 
a dash of vitriol with yer meals,’’ Captain Hen had 
been heard to remark once, which was probably the 
most vitriolic remark that had ever passed his lips. 

So, when Captain Caleb started in to josh him 
about Mehitable, he was not surprised. Nor was he 
in a mood to argue. Neither did he resent it. All 
of which was proof enough that something of far 
greater importance was troubling the philosopher of 
Bayport. 

He leaned back in his chair and tip-tilted it 
against the wall, as he surveyed his friend with an 
expression of solemnity on his round good-humored 
face. 

“We had ought to do something about hit,” he 
remarked. 

Captain Caleb nodded. “Right,” he agreed. 
“ ’Bout what?” 

The answer was not direct. 

“Jest come from down the river road,” he re¬ 
marked. “Come past Mis Lou Barzum’s boarding 
house. Craft hailed me—trimmest craft seen ’bout 
these parts in many a long day, ’less ye ’cept Martha 
Tisdale.” 

“By godfrey!” Again Captain Caleb’s inevitable 
oath. “Goes by the name of Dorothy—Dorothy 
Merrill. What’s she done?” 

But the other was not ready to say. He just went 
on: “Seen some from over at the big hotel on the 


THE RIVER ROAD 


69 


P’int that was some lookers, but this one—wal, now, 
them trim craft from over at the hotel, ye can smell 
’em a mile, all talc and odor about ’em ye’d think 
ye was off Ceylon’s spicy breezes as the hymn says. 
But this one—say, thar’s a smell about her like wood 
vi’lets in a teacup, like the wistaria vine over my 
cabin porch in the moonlight.” 

“Ye’re driftin’,” said Captain Caleb. 

Captain Hen caught himself. 

“As I was sayin’,” he went on, not noticing the 
interruption, as he reached into his deep pocket 
and took out a twist of tobacco from which he took 
a fresh chew, “I was cornin’ along by Mis Lou 
Barzum’s with all sails set when this Dorothy craft 
hailed me. Plain she had somethin’ on her mind. 
‘Cap’n Hen,’ she said, ‘I’ve been hearin’ about you, 
and I wanted to see ye.’ ‘Wal, here I be,’ says I. 
‘Did ye want I should make ye a little brigantine?’ 
But she didn’t laugh. ‘I jest wanted to talk to you 
about somethin’, somebody,’ says she, ‘and they told 
me you were the one could most like fix hit. Hit’s 
about Martha,’ says she, ‘Martha Tisdale.’ ” 

“First off I ’lowed she war tryin’ to say somethin’ 
’bout that pore girl, same as some other waggin’ 
tongues hereabouts be a-doin’, and I ’low I warn’t 
partic’lar cordial. ‘Wal, what about her?’ says I. 
‘She’s cryin’,’ says she, ‘leastways she was a while 
ago, and hit’s all on account of some wimmin in town 
that are sayin’ things about her, and she finer than 
any of ’em, but they don’t want her in their old club. 
Oh, the horrid mean things,’ says she, ‘I could kill 


*o 


THE RIVER ROAD 


’em.’ ‘Then’ says I, ‘I ’low ye wouldn’t be in much 
danger of being tuck up for murder if ye did kill a 
few sarpints,’ says I, ‘but what kin I do?’ Then she 
says as how she kinder hoped you and me, we might 
git them wimmin to let Martha in the club, fer she 
is pinin’ so—” 

Captain Hen stopped, pulled his chin fringe, and 
chewed more vigorously. It was a long speech for 
him, but Captain Caleb knew his mate, and he knew 
how much it had hurt him to hear of Martha Tis¬ 
dale’s trouble. 

“By godfrey!” Captain Caleb interjected. “I 
’low she don’t know much about the wimmin in this 
here club, effen she thinks we kin do anything with 
’em. Jest the same, hit’s a shame, and—” 

Captain Lem shoved his last checker over to an¬ 
other square—the game had reached an exciting 
finale, but he took time to stop long enough to put 
in his oar. He had at least heard the word 
“Wimmin.” 

“Wimmin,” he growled, “was bad enuff before 
they got the vote. Then they only bossed around 
the house. Now they think they’ve a call to boss the 
whole derned world. Hey, there!” he broke off to 
Captain Tony, “d’ye think I’m not watching ye, ye 
old rope walloper.” 

“This here club went on the rocks proper when 
we let the wimmin in, Caleb,” he offered, ignoring 
his checker opponent for once. 

“Dunno’s we let ’em in none,” came the rueful 
response of the big captain. “I ’low they jest sort 


THE RIVER ROAD 


71 


of scudded in when we didn’t have no lookout. Yes, 
yes, ye’re right. This club hain’t what it uster be. 
Was the time when it was a snug harbor when seas 
w r ere runnin’ high ter hum—but when we come here 
now, the wimmin they come too, and they bring the 
seas right in with ’em.” Disconsolately he ran his 
lingers through his scraggly locks in a gesture of 
despair. 

“Can’t even spit on the floor no more!” exploded 
Captain Tony, as he fired at an ornate spit box which 
had been one of the first contributions of the 
Auxiliary to the club house. “Talk about reformin’, 
once a man could speak his mind right out here: 
same’s on shipboard. Now we’ve got to double-reef 
our lingo like pesky landlubbers. We’ve—” 

“Got ter keep yer coat on—got ter keep your hat 
off—” Captain Lem’s lament was all but a groan. 
“It’s hell!” he moved his lone checker another space 
forward. 

Captain Hen Berry shifted his position as he 
shifted his cud. His eyes were on a picture of Ma 
Tisdale that now adorned the wall, having been put 
in place by the Woman’s Auxiliary, who thus sought 
to honor the woman who had been most responsible 
for their even having become a part of the club. 
He scowled as he looked, then turned from it as 
from something most unpleasant. 

The subject of women being in this, a sea-faring 
man’s club, had for the moment switched his 
thoughts from the wrongs at their hands of another 
woman whom he sought to champion—a woman he 


72 


THE RIVER ROAD 


had known since she was a little girl, and over whom 
he had watched tenderly during those years after her 
fisherman-father’s disappearance until she had 
anchored in what he believed and hoped was the safe 
harbor of wifehood and Trueman Tisdale’s love. 

The club, however, was his obsession. He felt 
toward it as a mother toward a child, for he had been 
one of the original members before the organization 
had attained the dignity of the regular club rooms 
it now occupied there in that old West Indy ware¬ 
house. His head wagged disconsolately, as his half 
circle of whiskers marked time. 

“Right ye be, boys, right ye be,” he averred. 
“Was a time when we old fellers steered this craft, 
makin’ harbor when we was a mind ter, droppin’ our 
anchor where we would. But we’ve had ter give up 
the idee. Hit’s a heep sight comfortabler, leastwise 
fer me, ter listen to th’ wimmin tryin’ to decide 
who’s to handle the wheel—” 

“And failin’ ter agree,” interrupted Captain 
Caleb. 

It was old Captain Tony who made a suggestion. 
He shifted his cud from one cheek to the other and 
looked about to see that none was near but his 
cronies. Then in a whisper, as he leaned forward, 
he asked: “Have you given any thought we might 
throw ’em out?” 

Captain Caleb’s chuckle [ended in a roar of 
derisive laughter. 

“By godfrey! That’s a mighty fine thought, 
[Tony,” he laughed, “but it hain’t practical. Ye see, we 


THE RIVER ROAD 


73 


jest been plain pirated, that’s what we be, and while 
they hain’t been no black flag run up, we’re down 
under the hatches, and we hain’t got no chance. No, 
siree, the flag that’s been run up on the topmast of 
this craft is a petticoat with an egg beater and sauce¬ 
pan rampant. We hain’t been asked to walk no 
plank yet, nor we hain’t been keelhauled, but we got 
to walk a pretty straight chalk-line jest the same, and 
I ’low ye hain’t give it much thought, Tony, when 
ye talk about throwin’ out sech fee-males as Ma Tis¬ 
dale when she’s got her hand on the wheel.” 

Captain Lem pushed back his chair from the table 
with its checker board and stared gloomily into 
space. 

“D’ye know,” his voice at last cut into the sad 
silence that had followed the words of Captain 
Caleb, “the wimmin in this club remind me of a 
three-master built back in the ’Eighties, jest across 
the harbor.” He jerked his thumb in the direction 
of the club windows as he went on: “Trimmest craft 
'I ever see, before they jerked her blocks away; good 
lines, good workmanship, everything good that 
makes a ship, or oughter. But when she took ter 
water, she seemed to think, like these here wimmin 
think, that bein’ contrary is part of the fee-male 
make-up—fact!” he added, as his eyes roved over 
the faces of his companions to see whether there 
lingered on one a doubt of the truth of his words. 

“We sorter figured with that ship it was the nature 
of the sex and it would wear off when she got used 
to the rudder. But, ‘nope!’ when she got her full 


74 


THE RIVER ROAD 


riggin’ there warn’t no holdin’ her. She was as 
perky as Eve in the Garden with a new dress.” 

“Tarnation! New dresses!” Captain Hen Berry 
sat up straight as the words exploded from him. 
They brought back to his mind what had been 
troubling him when he had “come aboard the Nancy 
Ann” as Captain Caleb had characterized the club. 
“They kin make a heap of trouble. Now, t’wouldn‘t 
s’prise me one bit ef them fee-males that is makin’ 
Martha Tisdale cry wasn’t jest jealous of all them 
new doo-dads True Tisdale’s been a-hangin’ on her, 
and that makes her so trim and pretty. What say, 
Caleb—you ’low we kin do anything to make ’em 
change their minds ’bout Martha’s bein’ in the 
club. Don’t know’s I kin—I tried. When I 
come along from Mis Barzum’s I run spang inter 
Ma Tisdale and a couple of others headed for the 
post office, and I kinder passed the time o’ day, and 
hinted some, but Ma Tisdale, she jest looked me 
over like I was some sort of pizen and she ’lowed: 
’Ye’re too old to be sich a fool, Hen Berry; you 
don’t know what ye’re talkin’ about. Seems like 
hit’s bad enough I have to have sich a critter right in 
my home, but I hain’t goin’ to impose her on my 
Christian neighbors.” 

“ ‘Why, what’s the matter with Martha, Ma?’ I 
asked her, but her nose went right up in the air, and 
she remarks, spiteful, ‘Matter ’nough,’ she snaps out 
at me. ‘You just wait till ye know all—’ and with 
that she hikes out toward the post office.” 

“I ’low she’s holding forth up there right this 


THE RIVER ROAD 


75 


minnit, and Lord knows what them fee-males and 
that old rooster of a Ozra Hemingway are cacklin’ 
and crowin’ about right now.” 

Captain Caleb’s head jerked around to the door as 
a clatter came from beyond the threshold. 

“Now, I wonder what she meant?” he inquired of 
the world at large. “More’n likely they’re cookin’ up 
some new kind of trouble for that poor little wife of 
True Tisdale’s, that never done ’em no harm. 
’Pears as though we might be a-goin’ to find out right 
soon, though,” he added, with his sage nod. “For 
unless my ears deceive me that’s Oz Hemingway 
cornin’ aboard now, and he’s in a hurry.” 

Captain Tony’s line of a mouth opened to a tooth¬ 
less grin. But there was no answering one on the 
faces of Captain Caleb or of Captain Hen. Well 
they knew what it meant when Ozra, the idle, was in 
a hurry. One thing and one thing alone would in¬ 
crease his usual snail-like speed. Ozra was in 
possession of some new scandal. And he wanted to 
disseminate it as quickly as possible. It was plain 
to them, too, that almost every one in town must 
know what his new choice tidbit was, for Ozra would 
never have left the post office were there anything 
still there to learn, or any one to listen to him. 
Members of the Neptune Club were always last to 
hear from the old-time sea cook, and he would not 
have come there had there been any one else to whom 
to talk. 

The door of the club flew open and Ozra clattered 
into the room. About him was an air of suppressed 


76 


THE RIVER ROAD 


excitement. Something out of the ordinary had oc¬ 
curred, it was plain. But, aside from a grumble in 
general greeting, he did not for a moment speak. 
He threw his old greasy cap into the wood-box and 
sat down. He tilted his chair back against the wall 
and looked about him. The checker players had 
finished their game and w T ere engaged in their usual 
climactic argument, their revilings of each other and 
promises never to play w r ith each other again, a 
promise always religiously kept—until the next 
day. 

Captain Caleb Fish muttered his usual oath and 
strolled over to the window, busying himself in mak¬ 
ing a new adjustment of the marine glass. Then he 
walked back slowly to stand in front of Ozra 
Hemingway, with his hands thrust deep into his 
pockets, and swayed on the balls of his feet before 
the small man. “Well, Oz,” he commanded, “out 
with hit! What is hit this time—the hull darned con¬ 
gregation throwin’ stones, eh? Must be somethin’ 
pretty excitin’. What do ye know?” 

The former sea cook attempted an unconcerned 
yawn. 

“Oh, nuthin’,” he said. “Nuthin’ new, that is—” 

But he had held in as long as he could. There 
was suppressed excitement in his tones, as he went 
on, after a minute—an eagerness that was not lost 
on his hearers who knew him so well. “Don’t know 
whether ye’ve noticed it,” he offered, “but they’s a 
newcomer in town. Jest seen him awhile ago 
myself—” 


THE RIVER ROAD 


77 


“Yes?” Captain Caleb’s tone was more than in¬ 
quiring. He knew the small wizened gossip-monger 
was getting at something that would not be pleasant 
in the finding out. 

“Yes” Ozra nodded, and a light of joy was in his 
little eyes. Ozra was enjoying himself. “Nate 
Sanderson’s back again.” 

And he was altogether satisfied when he saw the 
looks of consternation that spread over the counte¬ 
nances of his hearers. 

“Damn!” exploded Captain Hen with unusual 
fervor. “If that-” 

But Ozra went on without noticing the interrup¬ 
tion. 

“Cornin’ ’long th’ River Road a spell back— And 
I seen him with my own eyes. He was paradin’ like 
a play hero, down the road near the P’int, with True 
Tisdale’s wife and that little overdressed city chit 
that’s stayin’ at Mis’ Lou Barzum’s.” 

“Damn!” The outburst was a duet from Captain 
Caleb and Captain Hen. But it was Captain Hen 
who broke in. “What of it? Hain’t two young 
wimmin got a right to walk down a road in broad 
daylight with a man they know?” 

' Ozra, however, was not to be deterred. 

“All right,” he whined, “we’ll see—we’ll see! 
Hain’t I bin a-tellin’ ye all th’ time you kain’t expect 
nuthin’ from th’ daughter of-” 

There appeared a dangerous glint in the eyes of 
Captain Caleb as he interrupted the little gossip. 

“Come ’bout, Hemingway,” he growled. “Ye’rg 




78 


THE RIVER ROAD 


headed toward breakers. You let Martha’s father 
alone. Th’ least ye can do is to have a little Chris¬ 
tian charity-” 

But Ozra was not to be squelched too easily. He 
was rolling his newest morsel of gossip under his 
tongue, and was enjoying the flavor. 

“Ye kain’t say he was any ornament to the town, 
when he was livin’, can ye?’’ he asked. 

Captain Hen snorted. 

“Mebby a lazy fisherman hain’t exactly an orna¬ 
ment,” he observed, but his eye was fixed on Ozra 
meaningly as he went on: “Nuther is a trash can an 
ornament, and I ’low they be ’bout as many trash 
cans in this here community as they be sweet smellin’ 
flowers.” 

Ozra gave an angry flit to his shoulders. “Any¬ 
ways, his daughter’s married to True Tisdale, and 
that’s the only reason she’s tolerated around here—” 

“And I say True Tisdale got a mighty fine young 
woman,” Captain Caleb broke in. “No one’s goin’ 
to say a gol-derned thing about True Tisdale or his 
wife, leastwise while I’m around.” 

Ozra’s answer was a sneer, as Captain Hen inter¬ 
rupted hotly: “True Tisdale’s wife loves him—” 
he nodded vigorously, “and she’s reaching out for 
the same kind of love—not the canned kind. 
Maybe it would be better ef True wasn’t 
quite so good; more pitchin’ and tossin’. There 
wouldn’t be half the need for preachers, if devils 
warn’t so kind of ’pealin’—” 



THE RIVER ROAD 


79 


Ozra rose from his chair with a lift to his 
shoulders that was expressive. 

“Now, ye jest tell me this, Caleb Fish,’* and he 
thrust'his face forward into the scowling one of the 
big captain, “ef that Rogers gal is so almighty re¬ 
spectable as ye say, why don’t she treat True Tisdale 
like a respectable married woman would, hey?” 

Captain Caleb advanced a step toward the little 
gossip. Unconsciously his great arms flexed, a 
movement that was not unnoticed by the other who 
flinched back. It was the second time within a few 
days that Captain Caleb had heard the same insinua¬ 
tion. He answered it as he had before. 

“Who says she don’t, hey?” he demanded. “By 
godfrey, ye’re in shallow water agin, Oz. Git out 
inter the channel.” 

But for all his fear, Hemingway was not to be 
entirely silenced by a threat. He had not shot his 
last round in a battle that was to him pleasing, but 
was so unworthy, since his verbal ammunition was 
sent forth with but one idea in view—that of be¬ 
smirching a woman’s name, of insinuating that an 
innocent girl was not all she should be, and for no 
other reason than that Ozra Hemingway had 
aligned himself on the side of scandal-loving women 
of his community, who disliked Trueman Tisdale’s 
wife, because she was pretty and had won the big 
lightship captain’s love, which they believed should 
have gone to some other of their own choosing. 
Once more he thrust forth his wizened face. 

“Wal, now, there’s Nate Sanderson come back, 


80 


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didn’t he? Don’t ev’rybuddy know how she carried 
on with Nate, and now first thing off here she is 
walkin’ with him, hey? Ye don’t jest ’xactly ’spect 
a married woman ter—” 

Captain Caleb turned on his heel and reached 
down to pick up the seaman’s cap he still affected, 
despite the years that had passed since he had been 
in the active service of the sea that was once his life. 

“I don’t ’spect nuthin’!” he snapped. “That’s 
why I hain’t ever gittin’ disjointed! Comin,’ 
Cap’n Hen?” he added to his old confrere. “Got ter 
git out on th’ hurricane deck, got ter git my brain 
blowed free of fool idees.” 

Ozra Hemingway twisted his face into a grin of 
delight, as the two doughty old captains left the 
room and banged the door shut behind them. He 
nodded decisively. 

“Think yer smart, don’t ye?” he muttered after 
the retreating figures. “Wal, we’ll see what we’ll 
see! Nate Sanderson’s back.” 

* . . r*i • 

Dorothy Merrill kicked at the pebbles on the 
beach near the Tisdale home with her white-shod 
foot. Beside her stood Martha Tisdale, gazing out 
to sea. Dorothy most evidently had something on 
her mind, but she hesitated to say it. At last she 
looked up at her companion. 

“Is—is Captain Tisdale coming home to stay long 
this time?” she queried. 

Martha Tisdale answered with a smile that was 
touched with sadness, as she shook her head. 


THE RIVER ROAD 


81 


“ ’Fraid not, Dorothy,” was her reply, as she 
shaded her eyes w T ith a hand that showed brown be¬ 
side the daintier white one of the city girl. “Oh, I 
do wish he would, though,” she added plaintively, 
“I—I miss him so, and . . .” 

Her eyes turned from the sea to wander along the 
river road where could be seen the retreating figure 
of a nattily dressed man—Nate Sanderson. Tier 
companion did not fail to see the glance. Her eyes 
clouded, as she tossed her head in the direction of the 
man in the distance. 

“I don’t like him,” she observed bluntly. “I wish 
he would go away.” 

“Why—why,” Martha looked her surprise. 
“Why, I thought he was awfully nice to you—to us,” 
was her comment. 

“Too nice—by far.” The words were bitten off. 
“I’ve seen his kind before—” Impulsively she 
slipped an arm about the waist of Trueman Tisdale’s 
wife. “Oh, Martha, dear,” she cried. “I watched 
him—looking at you—I didn’t like it—please say 
you won’t let him fool you. Won’t you take my 
word for it? I’ve seen more men than you have, 
even if we are the same age, and—and I don’t like 
him.” 

The young wife’s eyes widened for a moment, then 
her lids were lowered to hide the depth of feeling 
with which they were filled. 

“I love my husband, Dorothy,” she said simply 
and with a conclusiveness. 


CHAPTER VII 


S if the arrival of Nate Sanderson had been a 
r\ pre-arranged signal, tongues that had for a 
time been stilled began again to wag to 
Martha-ward. From some vague whisperings that 
could be picked up around the post office, it would 
even be imagined that it had partly been the young 
wife’s conniving that had brought back to the little 
village a man who had been her avowed admirer. 
In no sense of the word could Nate Sanderson ever 
have been considered Martha Rogers’ suitor, for in 
the first place Nate was not a marrying man—he 
boasted as much. And in the second place, as 
Mehitable Sands put it, “What in time would a fine, 
upstanding young feller like Nate Sanderson want 
marryin’ the daughter of that no-account Rogers, 
her that had never lived any place but in that filthy 
shack down by the water front, and spent her time 
perking up to catch the eye of every chap in town?” 

Nevertheless, the returned w T anderer had, in the 
days before Martha turned all her attention to True¬ 
man Tisdale, been much in her society, and it could 
not but be said, truthfully, that Martha had not 
relished his attentions. Martha’s life for a long time 
had been principally made up of flattery from the 

82 


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83 


youth of the village, and she had responded to it as 
a sunflower to the golden orb of day. 

In spite of prophecies to the contrary, though, 
Martha Tisdale had been a good wife to Trueman, 
and even the most carping had found nothing to com¬ 
plain of in her conduct, except a sage wagging of 
heads, and an admonition “to wait.” Now it seemed 
that the waiting had not been in vain. Nate Sander¬ 
son had returned and it was plain to the eye that 
not the least of the attractions his former home town 
held for him were the sparkling eyes of another 
man’s wife. Not that Nate cared one whit whether 
a woman were married or not, if she pleased his 
fancy. He was not that kind, either. 

When Nate Sanderson had become the first officer 
of a coastwise packet that made regular trips out of 
Boston, he had kept pretty well away from Bayport, 
the pleasures of the New England metropolis being 
far more to his liking. Outwardly, Nate Sanderson 
was all that a young man should be, unless one took 
time to look deep into his snapping black eyes which 
held an insincerity and cunning that could not well be 
concealed. Dapper, well set-up, dressed as one of 
the handsome youths who look out from the clothing 
advertisements in magazines, he was a figure to 
catch the eye, to say nothing of the feminine heart. 

In fact, Nate Sanderson was a favorite with most 
of the women of Bayport, including even those of 
the Neptune Club Auxiliary, and there were few 
who would have altogether scorned the easy flattery 
which dripped from his ready tongue like honey. 


84 


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With feminine Bayport, the young first officer passed 
quite as the blase man of the world, and as such, of 
course, he was admired. 

Of course, too, his attentions to women were 
lavish, and there would not have been one of them who 
would not have resented the simple truth about Nate 
Sanderson should it have been told them. For Nate 
Sanderson was that blotch on civilization—a man 
w 7 ho thinks women his legitimate prey. In his code, 
it was his right to have any woman for his own—if 
he could get her. The man was an out and out 
rotter, a type that simple men instinctively distrusted 
as simple women believed. 

Such, then, was the man who had come back to 
Bayport to find Martha Rogers the wife of another 
man, her beauty so enhanced by the love she gave 
her silent, undemonstrative husband that her desira¬ 
bility was triply enhanced. It was with an inward 
wise smile that he realized that the stage had been 
well set for him, too, since he soon came to know that 
Martha Tisdale had been elevated by the tongue of 
gossip to a personage of a sort. Nate Sanderson 
would not have been himself had he not taken advan¬ 
tage of this gossip to further his own ends. 

At first Martha Tisdale believed it mere accident 
when she ran across the man so often, in the streets, 
in the store and post office, even down her own river 
road as she would be coming home from the town. 
Then she came to know that it was not coincidence, 
but a deliberate planning. The girl resented it, but 
neither would she have been Martha Tisdale, who 


THE RIVER ROAD 


85 


was Rogers, had she not felt just the little bit of 
elation in the fact that the man whom all feminine 
Bayport admired was obviously finding opportunities 
to be near her, and did not veil his admiration for 
herself. 

Many times she thought to tell Trueman, to plead 
with him to stay ashore—more in order to protect 
her against the gossip of which none than she knew 
better—but always she hesitated. Suppose Trueman 
should not understand? Suppose, too, he should 
think she was encouraging Nate Sanderson. Martha 
Tisdale felt her own position in her husband’s heart 
too insecure to risk it. And the gossip went on. 

Captain Caleb Fish came swinging up from the 
harbor front lugging one of his eternal lobster pots, 
still dripping from its latest immersion. He turned 
a speculative eye on one of its lathes that had broken 
loose. “Dern them fighting lobsters, and that rip¬ 
ping tide of the Gut,” he pondered. “Making a 
man forever mending something when he had 
ought to be taking his ease, now that he is ashore 
for keeps and the most substantial man in the com¬ 
munity.” A voice from across the street hailed him. 

“Whar ye bound?” demanded Cap’n Hen, as he 
waddled across to his friend, narrowly escaping the 
little nip which old Battler Perkins’ white horse, 
Charley, playfully gave in his direction, as he passed 
ahead of the animal. Perkins pulled rein. 

“Whar ye bound yerself?” the expressman asked 
acidly. “Want the hull road?” But the acidity in 
the voice changed to a chuckle as he brought his 


86 


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rickety wagon to a stop, leaned down toward the 
ruddy old seaman and offered, in a stage whisper 
that could be heard half way up the street: “Ef ye 
take my advice, Cap’n, ye’ll hunt a harbor quick. 
Jest see Mehit’ Sands headin’ this way, and she 
looked mighty determined—” The chuckle ex¬ 
panded into a roar of laughter as he clucked to his 
old horse. Captain Hen’s face was a study in 
crimson, as he tugged frantically at his whiskers. 

“Now ye just quit that joshin’, Perkins,” he de¬ 
manded, but there was a look of near panic on his 
moon-like face. “Want th’ whole dinged town 
gabbin’ ? All the blamed gossipin’ in this town makes 
me sick anyway—” His remark was finished to his 
old friend, Captain Caleb, as Perkins slapped the 
reins over the back of his old horse and ambled up 
the street. “Gossip! That’s all they do—even got 
it right in the Neptune Club, too, now, ever since we 
had to let the wimmin in. Humph!” 

Captain Hen seemed about to say more anent his 
own troubles, but there came a change in his voice as 
he turned and glanced down the street. Concern 
was written on his cheery features. He was seeing 
something the looks of which he did not like. 
“Lookee there, now,” and his gnarled finger pointed, 
“there’ll be some more of hit right off. See them 
two chinnin’ on the corner? Don’t seem to worry 
’em none, either.” 

Captain Caleb gave a half sigh as he, too, glanced 
up the street to see Martha Tisdale and Nate 


THE RIVER ROAD 


87 


Sanderson standing there, for all the eyes of the 
village to behold, in earnest conversation. 

“That now, that’s what comes of gossip!” Cap¬ 
tain Hen’s voice held bitterness as he went on. 
“ ’Spose she’d be havin’ anything to do with that 
feller ef she hadn’t been ragged into ribbons by a lot 
of cacklin’ hens—she’s and he’s—ontil she don’t give 
a durn? Wish’t people’d mind their own durned 
business!” 

It was too much for Captain Caleb. For once 
he had no reply, and it was while he was pondering 
that another offered what was in his mind for him. 
Sidling up the street with the shuffle that had become 
as familiar in the town as was his personality and 
quaint religious philosophy, came Shiner, the old 
darky fish peddler of whom Martha Tisdale had 
spoken to Dorothy as one person in town who would 
give her a good name. 

At first the black man did not see Captain Hen 
an3 Captain Caleb. His eyes, too, were focused on 
the pair on the street corner who were apparently so: 
interested in each other. He plumped straight into 
them before he saw them and it was with profuse: 
apologies that he backed away from Captain Caleb’s 
lobster pot which stood up-ended beside its owner* 
But Shiner knew he was privileged. He knew he 
could speak his mind. And he spoke it without the 
usual profuse apologies to the town’s big man which 
would have been given under ordinary circumstances. 

“Cap’n Hen,” he inquired coming nearer, the 
whites of his eyes rolling in the direction of the dis- 


88 


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cussed pair, “How come don’t nobuddy quote 
Scripture to dat pore chile—‘Deliver thee from the 
way of the evil man’?” 

For a moment Captain Hen rubbed his chin in 
silent contemplation of the matter. Then he beamed 
broadly at the old negro as the answer came to him: 
“Dinged ef I know, Shiner—onless it’s because 
we’re too durned apt to heed another proverb, 
‘Who keepeth his mouth and tongue keepeth his soul 
from trouble.’ Guess most of us think too much of 
our own comfort, eh, Shiner?” 

Muttering to himself as his woolly head bobbed, 
the old fish peddler made his way up the street. But 
the reproachful look which he cast at Martha Tis¬ 
dale, flushed and pretty as the rose colored thin gown 
she wore, was unheeded. She was listening intently 
to what it was her companion was saying. 

“Oh, if I could only believe it were true!” Old 
Shiner had caught the tremor in Martha’s voice as 
he scuttled past. Again his kinky head wagged 
sorrowfully. But how was Shiner, whose everyday 
business took him where he heard only the worst 
possible constructions put on any conduct of Martha 
Tisdale’s, to know of what she was talking—how 
innocent was her remark? Nate Sanderson’s whis¬ 
pered reply was too low for him to Hear, but he could 
not help seeing the manner in which the first officer 
bent over the woman to whom he was talking as he 
answered her. 

“I tell you it is true,” Nate whispered, “my infor- 


THE RIVER ROAD 


89 


mation comes straight, and if you really want to 
know about your father—” 

“More than anything in the world!” The girl’s 
voice broke in passionately. “Oh, if he is alive! 
You know, they didn’t think much of him around 
here, but I—I loved him—he was always so good to 
me—a lot better than most of the people in Bayport, 
I can say—” she ended bitterly, as her own glance 
wandered up the street to the gate of Mehitable 
Sands where that spinster had come out bareheaded 
for a word with a passing neighbor. Miss Sands 
could not let such an opportunity as this pass; she 
could not wait to discuss Martha and Nate until 
time for the mail to come in. 

“Then you’ll come?” There was eagerness in his 
urging. 

Nate Sanderson’s eyes narrowed to hide the gleam 
of triumph. He was playing an old, old game— 
the game of the hunter and the hunted, and he was 
finding joy in the pursuit. As usual, too, the odds 
were in favor of the hunter. After all, Martha 
Tisdale was a plastic and unformed personality, and 
in spite of herself she was finding a certain enjoyment 
in the admiration of the sophisticated man who was 
so openly her admirer. To do her justice, though, 
there was no thought of wrong in her mind; she was 
like a purring kitten that likes its fur stroked, and 
responded in much the same way. 

Perhaps had Martha Tisdale had more of that 
stroking from her own husband, she might have kept 
farther away from Nate Sanderson for all of his 


DO 


THE RIVER ROAD 


persistence. But there were two elements at work. 
Trueman Tisdale, for all of his love for his wife, 
was undemonstrative. There was no way in w T hich 
she could look into his heart and see the near 
idolatry with which he considered her. His devotion 
to his duty to the lightship kept him away from her 
so much, that she was almost persuaded that some 
of the things the women of Bayport were so ready 
to say were true—that he had married her because 
he pitied her. 

Fisherman’s daughter though she was, Martha 
Tisdale did not want to be pitied. She wanted love; 
admiration; no more than the meed of any young 
woman with her ability to return it. Then there 
were the women of Bayport. Martha knew how in¬ 
nocent had been her every move; how her whole 
life had been wrapped up in her husband since she 
had married him; she bitterly resented the injustice 
of those accusers who insinuated otherwise. In a 
resentful mood, she had more than once thought of 
flinging discretion to the winds—to do some thing to 
give them to talk about, as she told herself* but al¬ 
ways the thought of Trueman and how she cared 
for him, had obtruded. 

It was when in these reckless moods that she 
would stop and talk to Sanderson when he forced 
the opportunity, and there was something of unholy 
glee in which she would watch the gossips busily flit¬ 
ting up the streets to spread the newest word about 
what Martha Tisdale and that Nate Sanderson 
were doing. Always, too, she had been able to stop 


THE RIVER ROAD 


91 


his advances beyond a certain point, but perhaps not 
with all the determination she should have shown 
under more sympathetic circumstances. It was this 
very indecision, though, that encouraged the woman 
hunter to go on in his pursuit, to push every ad¬ 
vantage. 

In spite of everything, the first officer who be¬ 
lieved himself so irresistible, had not been able to 
obtain a rendezvous with the wife of the lightship 
captain. These meetings on streets and public 
places might be all right in their way—certainly they 
encouraged the gossip which no one enjoyed more 
than he who believed himself such a devil of a fel¬ 
low—but they were not enough. He could not un¬ 
loose the full battery of his charms and persuasion 
unless he could get her alone. It was with this pur¬ 
pose in view that he had stopped Martha Tisdale 
this morning, and tried another tack. 

He noticed the indecision with which she shook 
her head at his urging. 

“If you have anything to tell me about my 
father—if you really have any reason to believe he 
is alive,” she begged, “won’t you tell me right here— 
now? Please!” 

But he shook his head. 

“It’s such a long story,” he told her, “there’s so 
much to explain—the public street is not exactly the 
proper place for such confidences. Now, you do as 
I say—you just slip up the Back Road, near the 
cemetery, and I’ll stroll on down the street and then 


92 


THE RIVER ROAD 


meet you back up there in about an hour. What 
say, eh? You want to hear about your father?” 

Slowly the girl’s head nodded. Most earnestly 
she did want to hear about her father; to know that 
there was a chance of hearing from him again, 
though he had left her all alone to bear the shafts 
of criticism which for so long had been her portion 
in Bayport, she would give much once more to feel 
his arms about her, and his bluff laughter as he 
“jollied” the neighbors who thought they were so 
“high and mighty.” 

Full well she knew she ought not to listen to 
Sanderson’s suggestion; there was that in his eyes 
that told her he was not making the sort of proposi¬ 
tion a decent man might make who possessed infor¬ 
mation of so vital a nature to her. But it had caught 
her in a reckless mood—it was a mood that had been 
with her since the morning when she had been 
especially piqued at what she considered her hus¬ 
band’s indifference, and rebellious over unearned 
criticism. 

With the air of one taking a plunge into cold 
water, she straightened her slim body as she faced 
Nate Sanderson. 

“All right,” she said simply, “I’ll be there.” 

Without another word she turned and half 
stumbled up the street, past Captain Caleb with his 
lobster pot and Captain Hen, with unseeing eyes. 
She was rehearsing the scene of the morning in her 
home, and the bitterness of it was turning all the 
glorious day into pain and turmoil. 


CHAPTER VIII 


C APTAIN HEN squinted after Martha Tis¬ 
dale as she hurried by. 

“Humph!” he commented, as he noted the 
way she held her head so high that not a flower on 
her small chip bonnet hobbled. “Wind’s up an’ 
down the mast thar, right enough.” 

“More’n like Ma Tisdale’s been whistlin’ up the 
mast out Tisdale’s way,” nodded Captain Caleb. 
“ ’Low she’s ’nough to start any ‘Irish hurricane’.” 

But Martha heard them no more than she saw 
them. Probably a smile might have flitted across 
her set features if she had, for this daughter of the 
sea knew well the sailor man’s jargon, however un¬ 
intelligible it might have been to the layman. A fair 
wind and a good sailing breeze is his delight; no 
greater calamity can there be for him than the dead 
calm that lets his pennant hang limp and sad from 
his peak. It would be hard to try to trace this sea 
superstition any more than a thousand others—the 
sailorman’s lore is a lexicon in itself—but this 
Martha would have recalled had she not been so in¬ 
tent on her own affairs that she did not heed her two 
kindly old friends who watched her with eyes of sym¬ 
pathy. She knew, too, that when the pennant is lay¬ 
ing alongside the mast, they will tell one the “wind is 

93 


94 


THE RIVER ROAD 


up and down the mast,” and it is then when the 
calamity dead calm comes that they ‘‘whistle up the 
mast” for a breeze. 

Martha was unheeding because she was rehearsing 
the scene of the morning in her home, and the bitter¬ 
ness of it was turning all the day and the pleasure she 
had had in Trueman’s visit into wormwood. 

It had been a surprise, but a great happiness the 
night before when Trueman had suddenly appeared 
out of the shadows behind them on the beach while 
she and Dorothy Merrill were sitting there watching 
the lights out on the bay, and Dorothy was telling 
her tales of the dances and other frivolities she knew 
and of which Martha had had little chance to 
know—reminiscences brought up as they watched the 
big hotel on the Point across from them burst into 
an unwonted brilliance, since it was one of those 
nights when a big ball was to be given. 

For a long time they had sat here, the three of 
them, and it seemed to Martha that at last she was 
getting more happiness than she had craved, for 
Trueman had been, for him, in a jovial mood, and 
had entertained the two girls with sea tales and some 
of the quaintly humorous or philosophical ideas which 
he acquired out there in his loneliness as he watched 
the sea from his lightship. It had been late when 
they had come down the river road after taking 
Dorothy home—so late that Ma Tisdale had gone 
to bed—something for which Martha was deeply 
grateful, for, for once, she had her husband to her¬ 
self. 


THE RIVER ROAD 


95 


Trueman had not aroused her when he had come 
down stairs for his breakfast, and she had waked 
with a start to find him gone, and had rushed into 
her clothing that she might miss no minute of his 
rare visit. There had been a snatch of one of 
Dorothy’s songs on her lips as she ran down the 
steps. The kitchen door was open and no one about. 
But when she stopped in the open door, the song 
died. Outside, Trueman was hoeing one of his rows 
of prize corn. Beside him stood Ma Tisdale, and it 
was the w T hine of her voice that Martha heard. 

“When’ll ye quit bein’ a fool, True Tisdale, and 
come to yer right senses?’’ she was asking. “I tell 
ye the critter is the talk of the town, her and that 
Nate Sanderson, all along of ye bein’ as blind as a 
bat! Ye can’t make a silk glove outer a pig’s ear, 
and a beach-whacker’s daughter—” 

Her heart in her mouth, Martha listened. So 
Ma Tisdale was taking the first opportunity of tell¬ 
ing Trueman what the nasty gossipers were trying 
to do with her reputation. How would he take it? 
She stepped inside the door for a hiding place. Un¬ 
accountably her heart was beating with a sort of 
elation. If Trueman got mad—said things, even did 
things—no matter whether to her or to Sanderson— 
then perhaps he did care after all. 

Deliberately Trueman Tisdale laid aside his hoe 
and wiped his hands. He squinted up at the sky. 

“Humph!” he commented. “Looks like we 
might be goin’ to have a bender of some kind. ‘Red 
sky in the mornin’, sailors take warnin’; red sky at 


96 


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night, sailors’ delight.’ ’Low I’d best be getting 
along back to the lightship.” 

“Ye’re an idiot, True Tisdale!” Ma’s voice was 
a screech of wrath. “Hain’t I gone and done my 
duty by tellin’ ye and here ye be talkin’ about the 
weather. My land, but men are fools—all of 
them.” 

“Got anything to eat?” asked Trueman, as he 
turned to the kitchen door. 

Rut Martha was not there. She had fled. A 
forlorn little heap, she lay in the darkened sitting 
room with her face buried in her arms, as she sobbed 
out her grief on the slippery hair cloth of an old sofa. 

“Oh, he don’t care!” she moaned. “He isn’t even 
interested! Oh, True! True!” 

Could she have seen inside her husband’s heart, 
though, as he ate his morning meal, fondly believing 
her to be sleeping, her pain would have changed to 
gladness. For Trueman Tisdale had not been 
interested in his step-mother’s gossip for the simple 
reason that his love for his wife was so strong and 
fine, his own ideas of good so big, that it had not 
entered his head that Martha could be guilty of 
even suspicion. To Trueman Tisdale marriage was 
an utterly binding contract. In his simple faith, he 
could not imagine that it should be otherwise re¬ 
garded by the woman he had married. He would 
not wound her by even referring to the nasty com¬ 
ments that had fallen from Ma Tisdale’s tongue,— 
a tongue whose shrewishness he had had cause to 
know for many a year. 

Martha Tisdale’s rapid walking had brought her 


THE RIVER ROAD 


©7 


up the Back Road to the cemetery rendezvous be¬ 
fore she had finished the scene which had gone 
through and through her soul for the hours suc¬ 
ceeding Trueman’s leaving for the lightship. With 
a sinking at her heart, she remembered that he had 
not even gone up stairs to kiss her good-bye, but 
she did not attribute it to the real reason—that 
Trueman had not wanted to disturb her after she 
had been up with him so late the night before. No, 
she had reached one conclusion. Trueman did not 
care for her. It didn’t much matter what she did. 

She knew well enough that she should not be 
keeping this appointment with Sanderson, but in her 
reckless mood, nothing seemed to matter. Of course 
she wanted to know about her father, but this bait 
of Sanderson’s would not have been sufficient had 
not other causes plead the man’s own. She would 
have insisted that, if he had news, he should tell 
it to her in the presence of her husband. 

She sat down on a bed of ivy inside the stone 
fence to wait for him. Nor was he long in appear¬ 
ing. He walked up briskly, though with furtive 
glances about him, and flung himself down beside 
the girl on the ivy—too close beside her. Instinct¬ 
ively she moved away. Sanderson’s laugh was in¬ 
sinuating. 

“Not afraid of me, are you?” he bantered. 
“You’re safely married, aren’t you?” 

“What is it you know about my father, Nate 
Sanderson?” she demanded. 

“I know his daughter is about the sweetest thing 
my eyes ever rested on, and—” 


98 


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“Did you bring me up here to tell me that?” 

Martha leaped to her feet, and took a backward 
step toward the break in the stone wall. But she 
was not quick enough. Nate Sanderson was beside 
her, and his arms went about her in a passionate 
hold. He pulled her head down against his chest, 
laughing at the struggles she gave. 

“Not that, exactly,” he whispered hotly. “But 
this—and this—and this—” Maddened kisses 
rained on the face she tried to pull away. He was 
half choking her, and her struggles only made it 
worse. She tried to scream, but only gurgles of dis¬ 
tress came. She heard his whispered words. 

“—And to tell you that I love you—love you! 
That you’re mine—and I mean to have you!” 

Blindly the girl struck out, but her only reward 
was to be held tighter in the arms that she tried to 
spurn. 

“Don’t be a little fool!” Nate Sanderson’s grip 
tightened like a gorilla’s—not for nothing was 
he the mate of a steamer and led an outdoor life 
—and she gave a little moan of pain as he pulled 
her hand away from his face—the hand with which 
she was trying to scratch him, woman-fashion, in 
an unequal battle. She stumbled and fell directly 
on his chest. 

A slight crackle of the berry bushes beyond the 
wall, and gasps like gusty wind brought Nate San¬ 
derson upstanding. He turned fiercely toward the 
sound. All but exhausted, Martha fell away from 
him. Titters of amusement, cackles of outraged 
sanctity, drew her attention to the break in the wall, 



THE RIVER ROAD 


99 


just in time to see Mehitable Sands stalk through it, 
unmindful of the briars which impeded her progress. 
Her lean face was like a thunder cloud as she lev¬ 
eled a thin, scrawny finger at her victims. With 
her other hand, she motioned backward toward 
someone in the bushes, though Martha could see 
the wide eyes of the three girls who hid there. 
Mehitable’s basket of berries—the seeking of which 
had brought her to this spot at what she would 
have called the psychological moment, fell to the 
ground unheeded as she emphasized her point. 

“So this is what the God-fearin’ must put up with 
right in the sight of the innocent?” she demanded. 
Martha stumbled forward a step, but she did not 
fail to see the grim delight in her enemy’s eyes as 
that scrawny finger condemned her. 

“I ’low, young lady,” she said in accents of scorn, 
“I ’low that this will jest about settle you around 
these parts.” 

With a little murmur of despair, Martha Tisdale 
covered her face with her hands and fled headlong 
down the Back Road. She could not have told 
where she was going. She did not especially care. 

Nate Sanderson stepped forward with a gesture 
of gallantry and retrieved the Sands woman’s berry 
basket. With a graceful bow he handed it to her. 

“I am afraid you’ve lost some of your berries, 
Miss Mehitable,” he said, with a grin, “but I guess 
you’ll be wanting to hurry on to the post office or 
the Auxiliary now, won’t you? You’ve some real 
scandal!” 


* „ > 

> > * 

> ’ 

> * > 


CHAPTER IX 


H OW often it is reiterated that, in the matter 
of the eternal triangle, it is the injured third 
party who is the last to realize what is hap¬ 
pening. Tongues may wag, eyes turn aslant, as 
those who are gossiped about go on their way, in 
any small town such as Bayport—for “Main Street” 
is Main Street the world over. Rather it is, accord¬ 
ing to the rule, the one most vitally concerned who 
is the very last to learn of the perfidy of sweetheart 
or friend, of wife or husband. 

Friends may be friends, but they are all too in¬ 
clined, as Captain Hen Berry told the negro, Shiner, 
to heed the proverb about a still tongue—and keep 
out of trouble themselves—however much a dropped 
word might clear the atmosphere. 

Ma Tisdale, however, could be trusted to see to 
it that she was the exception. Her animosity to¬ 
ward her step-daughter-in-law, and her natural love 
of hearing her own vituperative tongue, were too 
strongly developed for her to leave Trueman in 
placid ignorance of what the rest of their world were 
saying about his wife and Nate Sanderson. It was 
too much to expect that she would delay the telling. 
Naturally it had been to Ma Tisdale that 

100 


V ( 

<. V ( 


THE RIVER ROAD 


101 


Mehitable Sands had hurried first with her tale about 
seeing Martha in Sanderson’s arms. 

Martha had been certain of the procedure. When 
she had run from Nate and the taunting of Mehitable 
Sands, she had not stopped in her mad rush until 
she had reached the sanctuary of her own room, her 
little white-curtained room that looked out over the 
water, through the windows of which she could see 
the flickering lights of her husband’s lightship night 
after night as she lay thinking of him, wondering 
if he were giving her a thought in her loneliness. 

With her hands clasped tightly about her knees, 
she sat there in awed silence. Not a moan escaped 
her, but her brain was working with feverish 
thoughts. What would the townspeople do to her 
now? What would Trueman think? For she knew 
without being told that Ma Tisdale would tell him 
the sordid details, with all the embroidery of which' 
her venomous imagination was capable. Could she 
make Trueman believe her in the face of such evi¬ 
dence as Mehitable Sands could produce? 

In her tortured brain she could hear the rattle 
of the tittle-tattlers of the town, a veritable plague 
of them. She could hear the tongues of the Auxil¬ 
iary rolling this choicest new tidbit around and under 
them. She knew how the story would grow and 
grow with each repetition, as the bearers of the news 
flew from the post office, from picket gate to picket 
gate along the winding streets. She could hear 
the whisperings. She knew the imaginations of her 
townswomen—knew r , too, how they had been waiting 


102 


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for just such an opportunity to scourge her who had 
done nothing to them save to be born of a parent 
whom they held in contempt, to wed a man whom 
they had one and all held too good for her. 

It was long past the noon hour that day when 
Trueman Tisdale’s dory again scraped on the beach, 
and Trueman, freshly washed and shaved as befitted 
a homecomer—tanned and wholesome from his long- 
hours of communion with wind and wave and sun 
—hurried up the pebbled path that led to his home. 
An expression of hurt surprise crossed his face for 
a moment as he noted that Martha was not on the 
little porch to greet him. He had pictured her 
running along the path to welcome him home. 

Inside there was an unaccustomed silence. Not 
even the sing-song wail of Sue Gilpin, the lanky 
orphan whom Ma Tisdale had taken in a few years 
ago to help with the work, could be heard. There 
must be something wrong when Sue was not nasally 
proclaiming something about “At the Cross, at the 
Cross where I fi-i-r-s-t saw th’ light,” or the like. 

Trueman pushed open the kitchen door. In a 
low rocker drawn up close to the red cloth-covered 
table, Ma Tisdale was vigorously rocking herself. 
The thin line of her mouth proclaimed that there 
was something she was thinking of—hard—some¬ 
thing which she must get off her mind unless an ex¬ 
plosion were imminent. Trueman Tisdale knew the 
signs, but in his usual quiet way which so many took 
for blindness when it was something far deeper, he 
ignored the storm signals Ma Tisdale flew. 



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103 


He cleared his throat. 

“Where’s Martha?” he asked casually. 

Ma’s snort of indignation set awry the square¬ 
framed glasses that adorned her long nose. 

“Humph!” she ejaculated. “I’d say hit was ’bout 
time ye asked where she be, True Tisdale. 
Humph!” her lips snapped shut. “Gallivantin’, I 
’low—” They snapped shut again. “With that 
Nate Sanderson—” 

The venomous sparkle in Ma Tisdale’s eyes—the 
unfriendly sparkle behind the square-framed glasses 
plainly showed that she was expecting her earned 
excitement now that her bomb was sprung. But if 
she had expected to rouse the silent keeper of the 
lightship, she was disappointed. Neither by sign or 
word did Trueman appear to have heard anything 
out of the way. His eyes roved over to the shining 
stove on which a tea kettle was sizzling, and his 
nostrils distended naturally as he went over and 
lifted the lid of a pot which Sue Gilpin banged on 
the back of the stove. 

“Got anything to eat?” he inquired nonchalantly. 
“I’m hungry. Don’t understand why the lightship 
cook can’t seem to make anything—” 

Ma Tisdale stopped short in her rocking and sat 
up with a jerk. 

“True Tisdale!” Her voice was a shriek. “Hain’t 
ye never goin’ to git no sense? Here I’m doin’ my 
duty and tellin’ you about that—that—hus—” 
Something in the depths of the eyes with which 


104 


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Trueman Tisdale turned on her stopped her short 
in the epithet! 

“ ’Bout that—that critter ye’ve married,” she 
amended, “and all you do is ask ’bout something 
to eat. Mightn’t be so hongry effen I was to tell 
ye she was seen by half the town in the arms of 
that Nate Sanderson. Now, what ye got to say?” 

For all the emotion he displayed, Trueman Tis¬ 
dale might have been listening to his step-mother 
relating how the black tabby cat had just brought 
her new batch of kittens down out of the attic. He 
strolled over to the window overlooking the garden, 
which was beginning to have the full flush of its ma¬ 
turity, and stared out. Under his breath he was 
humming a tune, but what that tune was, Trueman 
Tisdale could not have told you. For deep down 
under the repression of his nature—the repression 
that so many years of self-communion and living 
with the great things of nature had fostered—he 
was hurt, deeply hurt. Not so much for himself, 
as for Martha. 

Not that for a moment he doubted Martha, 
either. The man was too much of an idealist for 
that, and even now it did not occur to him to believe 
for a moment anything that Ma Tisdale was say¬ 
ing. What he was thinking was, how hard it must 
be for Martha to be the victim of that scurrilous 
tongue while he was away on duty. He was won¬ 
dering, for about the thousandth time, if there was 
not some way in which he could get rid of the 
woman his father had married. Not for his own 


THE RIVER ROAD 


105 


sake, but for Martha’s. As he unseeingly watched 
the green of his favorite Swiss chard in the sun, he 
did not even hear Ma as she hurried on with her 
tirade. 

But if Trueman did not, another did, and it was 
a frightened young woman who pressed herself up 
against the inside of the kitchen doorway as she 
heard herself condemned. Martha Tisdale had 
heard the sound of voices below as she sat in her 
bedroom and had brought herself to come down to 
face the worst. She could not imagine what True¬ 
man would do when Ma told him. Even with the 
courage of innocence, she had not been able to enter 
the kitchen when she heard her step-mother, and now 
she stood with a hand pressed against a beating heart 
as she waited. But Trueman did not speak. Only 
Ma went on, bitterly wailing: 

“And ye can stand there, True Tisdale,” she 
moaned, “jest starin’ out at nuthin’, jest a sayin’ 
nuthin’, and not thinkin’ of me none, and what a 
terrible blow hit is to me to have my poor dead 
husband’s home deserkrated by sech a scandal, and 
the hull town knowin’ hit, and you, ye jest actin’ like 
a stun image, and what kin I do?” 

Ma Tisdale paused for breath, “Jest as I told 
Mehitable Sands when she come and told me not an 
hour ago, when she had already told most ev’ry- 
buddy in town, and—” 

Trueman turned from the window and there was 
an unusual scowl on his strong young face. 

“Hasn’t Mehitable Sands anything to do at home 


106 


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that she must spend her time running about with 
wild gossip?” he asked sternly. 

But Ma did not heed. She hurried on. 

“An’ she says to me, ‘No, Ma Tisdale, I can’t 
sit down, I must hurry home, but who am I to be 
‘tendin’ to my own self or Jonas till I’d warned ye 
and the rest of the town, though heavens knows I 
don’t expect no thanks from True, for a man that 
will let a critter wind him ’round her fingers till he’s 
clean looney—’ And I says to her, ‘Mehitable,’ 
says I, ‘what can I do with a man what ain’t got 
no proper feelin’, and heavens know, too, his poor 
dead father wouldn’t have acted like he does when 
I try to tell him things for his own good,’ and hit’s 
true, True Tisdale, true as Gospel, and you know 
your poor dead father wouldn’t have acted like 
you’re doin,’ askin’ for something to eat, had anyone 
told him I’d gone gallavantin’ with fancy men on 
dark roads—” 

For sheer lack of breath Ma Tisdale stopped for 
a moment. Across Trueman’s face swept the 
understanding glance of humor, all too rare, that 
showed to those who knew him well how human he 
was, deep down, under his silent exterior. 

“Are you sure, Ma,” he asked quizzically, “are 
you sure it wasn’t worry over that that killed him?” 

As though she had been waiting for just this ex¬ 
pression of something human from her husband, 
Martha Tisdale came hesitatingly into the room. 
Angrily, Ma Tisdale rose from her chair, and there 
was a depth of meaningful scorn in the movement 


THE RIVER ROAD 


107 


with which she pulled aside her skirts as she swept 
the frightened and protesting Sue Gilpin through the 
outside kitchen door. She pointed an accusing finger 
at Martha, who timidly approached her husband. 

“There she be, now!” she screamed. “You ask 
her, herself, True—see if she can deny hit. Warn’t 
ye up on the Back Road with Nate Sanderson, warn’t 
ye?” 

Sick at heart and frightened, Martha looked from 
one to the other. Only a movement on the part of 
her husband would have caused her to seek the pro¬ 
tecting shelter of his arms. But in his face she saw 
nothing. As usual, the depths of Trueman Tisdale’s 
feelings were hidden behind the mask he wore be¬ 
fore the world. But, oh, if she could have known 
the tenderness, the yearning in his heart! 

Could she have read that his silence was but a 
recognition of the preposterousness of the charge 
against the woman he loved—the woman he trusted, 
since to him love, trust, and the covenant of marriage 
were one and the same. But she did not. She 
drew back, her face paling, her mind confusedly 
hunting for words. 

Martha Tisdale was not a dissembler; she had 
not the poise of the woman of the world to come 
to her aid in an emergency. She verily believed that 
if she told the truth about her rendezvous on the 
Back Road that she would not be believed. She 
must not further estrange the man she loved at any 
cost. And so she told a lie—a white lie. 

“I—I was up there after candleberries, True,” 



108 


THE RIVER ROAD 


she stammered, “and Nate, he came along about the 
time Mehitable Sands did, and—” 

Ma Tisdale let forth a peal of raucous laughter, 
as she switched her skirts to the farthest point away 
from the embarrassed young wife. 

“Candleberries!” she jeered. “With a million 
bushels of ’em growin’ forty rods behind your own 
back door. Likely story! Paugh!” 

The silence of husband and wife was Ma Tis¬ 
dale’s opportunity. Perhaps she believed that she 
had at last partly succeeded in breaking down her 
step-son’s faith in his wife. Perhaps she had only 
wound herself up to a point where she could not 
stop. However, it was a sad five minutes that fol¬ 
lowed, in which she poured forth her torrent of com¬ 
plaint, allegation and opinion of Martha. Perhaps, 
too, she would not have found such joy in the 
vituperation had she known that it was the girl alone 
who was hearing her, each word searing deeply into 
wounds already aching—each sentence rousing 
higher resentment that bade fair to burst all bonds, 
and give Ma Tisdale and all Bayport something real 
to talk about. 

Timorously Martha watched Trueman’s face. 
But, as usual, it told her nothing. That far-away 
look in his eyes could mean but one thing. Trueman 
did not care. He heard what Ma Tisdale was say¬ 
ing—knew what all Bayport was saying—and he 
did not mean to do anything about it. He did not 
care! It was too much. With a rush the tears 
came—bitter, angry tears. And without looking at 


THE RIVER ROAD 


109 


him—she did not see the look of understanding he 
cast on her—she fled through the outer kitchen door, 
around the front of the house, and to the knoll over¬ 
looking the sea. Deep pity was in the look that 
Trueman Tisdale gave her as he watched her flying 
figure out of sight. 

Ma Tisdale would not have been so happy had 
she known that her words had fallen on unhearing 
r ears, as far as Trueman was concerned. Without 
a glance in her direction, he, too, turned out of the 
kitchen door. One glimpse he caught of the dis¬ 
appearing figure. 

“Poor little child!” he thought. “It’s too bad! 
We’ll have to get rid of the old woman—some 
way—” 

An hour later Martha had not returned, but it 
did not occur to Trueman to go searching for her. 
If he had he would have found her, a pitiful little 
heap, under a scraggly cedar, whose thin branches 
hung out over the cliff. She sobbed out her hurts 
to the waters of the ocean that surged thirty feet 
below. Staunch as he was, it had not even occurred 
to him that Martha should doubt his steadfastness. 
He came into the kitchen bearing a handful of Swiss 
chard. He dropped it on the table beside Sue Gilpin, 
who was busy over her bread making. 

“Tell Martha I had to be getting back to the 
lightship,” he said, “tell her I left this for her, and 
to eat some for me, and,” and he leaned over to 
whisper cautiously with one eye cocked toward the 


) 


THE RIVER ROAD 


110 

doorway leading from the kitchen, “tell her not to be 
mindin’ Ma too much.” 

Sue Gilpin grinned and scratched the back of one 
leg with the toe of her worn shoe. She understood. 
She nodded assent, and a realization of the need 
of caution. And, perhaps if Sue Gilpin had not 
forgotten Trueman’s message almost as soon as it 
had been given, Martha Tisdale would not have 
undergone all the bitterness of the night that fol¬ 
lowed, would not have made the resolves that were 
to have such bitter consequences. 

Crunching feet in the sand behind him stopped 
Trueman Tisdale, as, with head hung low and still 
considering the matter of getting rid of the step¬ 
mother who was making of his young wife’s life 
a misery, he had almost reached his beached dory. 
At the sound he turned quickly, and his slow smile 
of recognition welcomed the short stubby figure of 
Captain Hen Berry as he puffed his way toward 
him. Captain Hen greeted him with a long hail. 

“Halloo, there, True, didn’t know ye was ’shore.” 

“Yes—had a couple of hours—thought I’d take 
a look at my garden.” 

Despite his known liking for the old seaman, and 
Captain Hen’s apparent eagerness for a chat, it was 
evident from Trueman Tisdale’s manner, that he 
was not as willing as usual to be stopped now that 
he had started for his lightship. He took another 
step toward the dory, but Captain Hen fell in be¬ 
side him. 

“How’s everything ’board ship, True?” he asked, 


THE RIVER ROAD 


111 


as though he were asking for news of a vessel he 
had not heard of in many a day. 

“Shipshape.” Trueman Tisdale wasted no words. 
He moved forward. 

“So!” said Captain Hen Berry. Then he squinted 
up at the long, tall sailorman beside him. “An* 
lonely?” he asked. 

Trueman shook his head. “Not special,” he 
admitted, with a shrug. “Plenty to think about out 
there—and I’m used to it. Guess it’s born in the 
Tisdale blood, attending lightship. Three genera¬ 
tions have done it.” 

For a moment the round little captain did not 
speak. He seemed to be thinking something over, 
but was as loath to speak as he was to allow Trueman 
to enter the dory in which he was without doubt so 
anxious to put out, being deterred only, it was 
apparent, by the politeness that would not let him 
leave the garrulous old captain so abruptly. 

“So!” he repeated. “Three generations—seems 
likely hit’s time fer a change? Two weeks on board 
and one ashore—seems like that might make a dif¬ 
ference to a family man.” 

The big lightship captain wheeled to face his tubby 
companion. “Captain Hen,” he asked abruptly, 
“have you been listening to gossip?” 

Uneasy, uncertain what to say, the ruddy face of 
Captain Hen grew ruddier in the sunset glow or with 
(embarrassment as he merely nodded, his right hand 
tugging at his whiskers. 

“Have you?” Trueman was insistent. 


112 


THE RIVER ROAD 


“Wal, I—I hear things,” was the reluctant ad¬ 
mission. 

“So do I.” Trueman’s jaw closed with a snap. 
“But hearing things never hurt anyone. You don’t 
have to listen to them.” 

A broad grin crossed the face of Captain Hen 
Berry. 

“I ’low ye hain’t been much to the club since the 
wimmin got the upper hand, have ye, True?” he 
asked. “Why, Lord, man, ye’ve got to listen. Say, 
lookee here, True,” and his tone changed from a 
laughing one to serious earnest. “I know hit hain’t 
none of my gol-durned business, but—but see here,” 
he blurted it out, “you know I’m gosh-amighty fond 
of Martha, don’t ye?” 

A slow smile came to Trueman Tisdale’s face. 

“Yes,” he admitted. “So am I.” 

“Her never havin’ had a mother,” went on Cap¬ 
tain Hen, “and not gittin’ much help from the kind 
of father luck give her, why, I’ve jest kinder kept 
a weather eye on her, so to speak, and—” 

“All right! quit tacking, Cap’n Hen.” Trueman 
spoke tersely. “What’s on your mind?” 

Captain Hen, so admonished, made short work 
of what he had hitherto tried so unsuccessfully to 
say. 

“Did hit never occur to ye,” he blurted out, “that 
ye’re makin’ livin’ mighty hard for her, leavin’ her 
here alone in the village with all these here talkin’ 
females—leavin’ her to fight out her own battles?” 

Trueman Tisdale’s long hand reached out and 



THE RIVER ROAD 


113 


was laid gently on the shoulder of his friend. 
In his eyes was signaled the depth of feeling that 
few saw, but which none, seeing, ever forgot, or who 
after seeing could ever hold Trueman Tisdale to be 
a callous man. 

“Cap’n Hen,” he said slowly, “I married Martha 
against the advice of most every one because I loved 
her, and I felt certain she loved me. A man—one 
like me, anyway, trusts the woman he loves. That’s 
all there is to it, you see. And I haven’t had any 
reason not to trust her—yet. To-day for the first 
time I realized they were talking. It has never 
bothered me. I know this town, and I know some¬ 
thing of the world, and it seems to me that it is the 
way of the world to throw acid around, just for 
amusement—” 

“Hain’t no business ter,” Captain Hen broke in 
with a snort. “What’s folks goin’ to do that gets 
burned?” 

Trueman’s seriousness deepened. 

“Wash it off, Cap’n Hen,” he said, “wash it off, 
before it bites in. Sunshine, wind, water, tobacco 
smoke—and a good heart—that’s the prescription. 
Let the old world rave. This little section is going 
to, any way—” He broke off to turn to his dory, 
shaking off the old seaman’s restraining hand, as 
though his last word had been said. His eyes—far- 
seeing eyes—glanced out over the water to the light¬ 
ship that swung at its moorings. He pushed off the 
dory and leapt in, casting a weather eye at the sky. 


114 


THE RIVER ROAD 


“Fine weather!” he commented in his every-day 
voice. 

From his place on the shore, where he stood with 
his chubby legs far apart and his hands stuck deep 
in his trousers pockets, Captain Hen snorted, almost 
out of patience. 

“Kain’t never tell when a squall’s cornin’ up.” 

Trueman picked up an oar and shoved the boat 
into deeper water. He smiled. 

“Always can trim sail when one does—if one’s a 
sailor,” he replied. 

Captain Hen emitted what he fondly believed to 
be a sigh, the while he tugged beneath his chin. 

“Hope yer right,” he said bluntly. 

The smile on the big lightship captain’s face grew 
more genial. He seemed not to have a care in the 
world. 

“Know I am,” he nodded. “Bye, Cap’n. Don’t 
worry too much. Spoils your sailing eye.” His 
last words reached the older man from far out where 
the distance-eating strokes had taken him. 

With a droop to his broad old shoulders, Cap¬ 
tain Hen watched until Trueman in the boat was 
a small spot in the water. His fringe of whiskers 
shook with his head, as he turned to plod off toward 
the town. 

It was a forlorn little wife humped over in the 
grass under a cedar tree on the knoll, idly watching 
a distant sail, who finally caught sight of Trueman’s 
familiar dory as it came within her ken. 


THE RIVER ROAD 


115 


“He’s gone away from me,” she murmured, 
“when I need him most.” 

With a sad little sigh Martha gathered herself 
together and walked slowly around the little head¬ 
land to the beach, where Dorothy Merrill found her 
at sundown as she and Jack Billings were returning 
from one of their two-some picnics farther up the 
shore. 

With a pleased cry, Dorothy left the youth who 
was her constant attendant, to run to Martha, whose 
every curve showed her so disconsolate. And with 
an understanding that is innate in some men, Jack 
Billings did not at once follow the girl, to follow 
whom was his chief occupation such summer days. 
It took but a glance to show that something was 
wrong,—very wrong, and rightly enough the youth 
felt that Dorothy alone could soothe the injured 
feelings of the other girl better than if he were 
along. He busied himself, at a distance, with tossing 
pebbles into the water. 

“Martha!” Dorothy called gayly, “where have 
you been—we looked and looked for you to-day to 
go after crabs with us, and—why, what’s the mat¬ 
ter?” She broke off to look seriously at the young 
wife who raised red-rimmed eyes to meet her own 
laughing ones. Quickly she slid into the sand be¬ 
side Trueman Tisdale’s wife. Her arm went 
sympathetically about her. 

“What is it?” she repeated. 

But Martha’s head only shook pathetically. 

“Nothing,” she replied, as her fingers picked at 



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the cloth of her rumpled gown, “Nothing—I’m 
lonely, I guess.” 

But Dorothy Merrill, with the understanding of 
all women, knew that loneliness was not the entire 
cause of misery she could see so plainly depicted on 
the face of the girl she had chosen as her friend. 
Too, she had heard the latest about Martha and 
Sanderson. It had been so freely discussed at Mrs. 
Lou Barzum’s breakfast table that Dorothy herself 
had left in high indignation after a futile endeavor 
to tell the gossipers what was her opinion of them 
severally, and to vow she did not believe one word 
against Martha. Her only reward had been the 
whispered comment she had heard as she flounced 
out—a comment from the spinster, Miss Lord, who 
had been so taken up by the women of the Neptune 
Auxiliary, to the effect that “birds of a feather—” 

Now with the pitiful tear-stained face before her, 
it all came back to her. 

“Cats!” hissed Dorothy Merrill, under her 
breath, but it was in the same tone of lightness that 
she looked over her shoulder at the youth at his 
pebble-throwing, and called: “Jack, come here, 
quick! Here’s a little baby girl who has been a- 
crying because she is ‘lonely’. What shall we do 
with her?” 

Dorothy leapt to her feet and clapped her hands 
in glee as Jack came forward. 

“Oh! I have it!” she exclaimed. “We’ll take her 
over to the hotel with us to-night to the dance—” 

Martha Tisdale’s heart lost a beat or two as she 


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117 


heard her. A dance! At the Point Hotel! But 
it could not be. 

“Oh, Dorothy,” she gasped, “I—I couldn’t—” 

“Just why, I’d like to know, Mrs. Trueman Tis¬ 
dale,” demanded the girl from the city. “You’re 
free, white, and twenty-one, aren’t you—and you can 
do as you please, can you not—we’ll send Jack out 
in Cap’n Hen’s motor boat to tell your husband 
you’re going and you needn’t mind anything or any¬ 
one else—” 

“Yes, yes, certainly—that’s the stuff!” Jack 
Billings put in his plea eagerly. Like Dorothy, he, 
too, had come to think much of this waif of fortune 
whom his wanderings about the town had shown him 
had no easy time of it in such a gossiping community. 
“Come on—I’ll get going now, before it’s dark.” 

A dance! with young people like herself! The 
bright lights of the big hotel! The music! How 
often had she heard it faintly from across the harbor 
and wondered what it would be like to be among 
the people in those big rooms and on those wide 
verandas. She felt that she should not, but she could 
not but think of it. What harm would it be, after 
all, to go there with Dorothy and Jack! Surely the 
people in Bayport could find nothing wrong with 
that. They could not accuse her of going any place 
to meet Nate Sanderson. She hesitated, and like all 
hesitators, was lost. 

“But I—I—I’m afraid I’ve nothing—” She 
glanced down at her own crumpled gown, and it was 
the wise Dorothy who knew the rest. 


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“Now I know what you’re going to say,” she 
announced, “you’re going to say you’ve nothing to 
wear. You have. You’re going to wear my blue 
chiffon—it’ll be lovely with your dark hair and 
brown eyes!” She danced about excitedly. 

Martha Tisdale stood up half totteringly. She 
smiled whimsically as Dorothy wound an arm about 
her waist as the three started up the beach. She 
smiled anticipatorily as she hesitatingly told them: 

“It will be nice—you know, I—I’ve never worn 
an evening gown!” 


CHAPTER X 


T HEY were the lights that first claimed Martha 
Tisdale’s attention; widened her eyes and 
quickened her heart—the lights of the big 
hotel—and the smell of the roses. Opaque-globed 
ineandescents, shedding their soft glow that sent 
kindly beams out to make a dusk on the wide porches 
with the clustered wicker chairs, their cool depths 
inviting to a languid rest and companionship. 

Rosy-hued tall lamps on white-clothed tables—a 
shimmer from crystal-fringed globes—but lights, 
lights everywhere, that made of the big summer hotel 
on the Point an oasis of brightness in the blackness 
of the encircling pines and the darkness of ocean 
waters, with only the twin lights of the lightship, 
far out to the westward, to break its sombreness. 

Like all Bayporters, Martha Tisdale had long 
been accustomed to the lights of the hotel, in the 
distance. Like all of them, too, she had been over 
to the summer resort many times, but, until this 
night, such visits had ended a hundred yards or so 
from the wide porches, with their quota of well- 
dressed summer visitors. Bayporters never intruded 
themselves onto those porches. They were ever on' 
the outside looking in. 

The girl-wife’s breath came quick as she stepped 

119 


120 


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from the little motor boat in which she and Dorothy 
Merrill had been guided by Jack Billings from the 
small cove near the Tisdale home. They had de¬ 
cided against the Bayport ferry which was the usual 
way of reaching the hotel across the river, for as 
Dorothy Merrill had agreed with Martha: “What 
they don’t know in Bayport, won’t hurt them.” 

So Jack had engaged Captain Hen Berry’s motor 
boat and had himself piloted his guests across the 
river’s mouth where it emptied into the ocean. 

Those bright lights had struck Martha with a 
blinding flash as the small craft bumped against the 
landing in front of the hotel. Already the dancing 
had begun, and the soft strains reached them more 
fully than they had when the party had been out 
on the water where the “put-put” of the motor had 
claimed first attention. Young Billings sprung 
out lightly and held out his hands to Dorothy and 
Martha. Exuberant-spirited herself, Dorothy could 
not understand why Martha hung back. 

“Oh, come on,” she urged. “You’re going to 
have a good time for once in your life, and forget 
a lot of cats, and it will do you good. Why, there 
won’t be a soul here who will be as beautiful as 
you are—all fixed up and everything. You will have 
them all wondering who you are! Won’t she, 
Jack?” turning to her companion who still held out 
his hand to his reluctant guest. 

But though Jack Billings grinned his cheerful grin 
as he enthusiastically agreed, there was that in his 
£yes as they held on Dorothy, herself, that showed 


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121 


him to be making some inward reservations about 
beauty. 

Indeed, Martha Tisdale had no cause to worry 
over her personal appearance. The long swinging 
glass in Mrs. Lou Barzum’s best room had proven 
that to her as she had stood and beheld herself with 
delighted eyes, in the depths of which was a hint of 
wistfulness. The delicate blue of Dorothy’s loaned 
gown set off to all their advantage the midnight of 
Martha’s hair and the soft brown of her eyes. And 
in comparison to her, a foil, Dorothy had looked 
like a beam of sunshine as she had stood beside her 
—Dorothy in her own gown of gold hue to match 
her sunny locks. 

Once across the porch and into the wide, lighted 
rotunda of the hotel, Martha’s spirits rose. It was 
the lights—the music—the roses. Not such roses 
as grew in her own garden, or in the carefully tended 
beds of her Bayport neighbors, but big, luxuriant, 
subtle-odor-breathing roses that nodded on their 
long stems from crystal vases and tall brass holders 
—roses everywhere! 

The big Point hotel was in gala attire. It was 
the occasion of the largest mid-season dance, and 
guests had arrived from Boston—from New York, 
from smaller centers—for the one purpose of 
attending it. 

Once in the laughing, subduedly-murmuring crush 
—once one of them, and not singled out conspicu¬ 
ously—the girl from Bayport began to lose her self- 
consciousness. But her heart beat faster and faster 


m 


THE RIVER ROAD 


as her senses reeled with the perfumes around her— 
the perfume of the roses, and the less easily dis¬ 
tinguished, but more intoxicating scents of the well- 
gowned women who floated past her. 

She seemed in a dream. Forgotten for the time 
was all the pain she had that day endured through 
the backward-leaning Puritanism of her unjust 
neighbors and step-mother-in-law. Forgotten even 
for a moment the pangs over Trueman’s not caring 
—the lack of love on his part she believed she had 
uncovered. This was life! Something she had 
hitherto only dreamed about! 

But in acknowledging her forgetting, it must not 
be overlooked that, after all, Martha Tisdale was 
only a girl; a girl to whom all that by right should 
come to one young and lovely had been denied; 
whose life had been a sordid nightmare of social 
ostracism for no fault of her own until she had be¬ 
come Trueman Tisdale’s wife, then— 

“Some peach!” big blonde “Chappie” McGrew, he 
of college crew fame, was whispering to Jack 
Billings. “Who is she?” 

“Why, Miss Merrill,” was the surprised reply. 
“You know her—” 

“Chappie” shook his head. 

“Of course; of course,” he agreed, “but I mean 
the other one with your own beauty—the peaches 
and creamy, cosmeticless queen of the night—” 
“Oh!” Billings was not much interested. “One 
of the Bayporters—Mrs. Trueman Tisdale.” 

“Ah, married, eh?” the other queried. “Hadn’t 


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123 


you better watch your step, old thing? You know 
these small town gossips.” 

Jack Billings grinned, but his eyes rested on 
Dorothy Merrill as she floated by in the arms of a 
white-flanneled youth. “Oh! me, you mean!” he 
laughed. “I—I’m chaperoned!” 

Vaguely Martha was aware of the introduction of 
“Chappie” McGrew. She felt her cheeks grow warm 
with some delicious new feeling as she realized his 
admiring glances. 

“Will you dance?” he asked her. 

And the whole scene once more became a fairy¬ 
land and she a dream princess as she felt herself 
drawn by the famous stroke oar into the throng that 
drifted across the waxed dance floor, a floor whose 
shining surface reflected glint for glint the sparkle 
of the myriad lights in the domed ceiling above. 

Ah! This was life! Seen through the golden 
haze of a silken-shaded glow—sensed through the 
perfume of a garden of Araby! 

Again and again she danced. Dorothy’s pre¬ 
diction that the little villager would be a sensation 
had come true. But more and more it seemed un¬ 
real. Could this be she—Martha Tisdale, wife of 
Trueman, the sombre? This shining-eyed, pink¬ 
cheeked creature in the blue gown whose image she 
glimpsed as she glided by the long mirrors? She 
felt like pinching herself to find out. She even 
laughed aloud as the thought came of what Ma 
Tisdale or Mehitable Sands or even Mrs. Caleb 
Fish would think—or say—could they but see her. 


124 


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What did it matter what they said—ever? She 
could laugh at them this night. She could laugh at 
the seriousness with which she had taken their 
clacking. 

Trueman came into her mind as she noted the 
fine physiques of some of the athletic young men 
who were her dance partners. Why would Trueman 
never do anything of this kind for her? Why, he 
never took her anywhere! He hadn’t since last 
year’s strawberry festival on the church lawn, that 
time Mehitable Sands had so loudly lamented the 
spoiling of her wine-colored silk dress, the same she 
had been “making over” for half a decade or so. 

A filmy cloud passed over the young wife’s eyes 
as she gave thought to her husband. Why could he 
not understand that she was young, that she loved 
life—and him! There was a little clutch at her 
heart as she recalled her conclusion that Trueman 
had ceased to care for her, if he ever had—much— 
or at least as much as he cared for his work of 
tending lightship. 

It was no time, though, for serious thoughts. The 
light came back into her eyes’ dark depths as she 
swung to the lilt of the music. Dorothy Merrill 
danced by in the arms of Jack Billings. She waved 
her hand to Martha as she laughed: 

“Having a good time?” 

Martha’s one answered word held a world of 
fervor. 

“Wonderful!” 

So Martha Tisdale, wearing her first evening 


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125 


gown, conscious of the beauty of her white arms 
and neck, danced, but . . . 

In the rooms of the Woman’s Auxiliary of the 
Neptune Club, over the original quarters which they 
had pirated, the women of Bayport were making 
a Roman holiday. Neither Ma Tisdale nor 
Mehitable Sands had been able to hurry their supper 
dishes fast enough to suit them in their eagerness 
to reach the club and spread Mehitable’s first-hand 
news—her real scandal about seeing Trueman 
Tisdale’s wife in the arms of Nate Sanderson. 

As if sensing something unusual, the other mem¬ 
bers had drifted in early, so that long before they 
could hear old Captain Tony downstairs lonesomely 
striking eight bells on the big chowder pot in the 
galley, there was a full quota—a buzzing of excite¬ 
ment. Hands were raised in holy indignation, eyes 
lowered or lifted to flash fire as Mehitable recounted 
her experience of the afternoon—an experience that 
lost nothing in embellishments after its oft repeating. 

Martha Tisdale was up for sentence. Within 
the short space of an hour, while the young wife 
was gayly dancing, over in the brightly-lighted music- 
filled hotel, across on the Point, she had been tried 
without a hearing, and on the circumstantial evi¬ 
dence produced, had been condemned. Almost to 
a member, the women of the Neptune Auxiliary were 
in favor of socially “shooting her at sunrise.’’ 

With a martyred air, Ma Tisdale put in her 
plaint: 

“Oh, I’m so sick and tired of all her goin’s on,” 



126 


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she complained, but there was a sparkle in her faded 
eyes behind the square-rimmed specs that showed 
how hugely she was enjoying it all. “But there don’t 
seem nuthin’ a law-’bidin’ church member in good 
standin’ kin do, what with a son-in-law like mine with 
a temper like a mule—” 

Mehitable Sands rose in her might. 

“Somethin’s got to be done!” she declared, and 
her jaws shut with a snap that drew her thin lips 
into a line. “The wimmen of this town’s got to 
purge theirselves of th’ disgrace that’s been 
brought on ’em by this—this critter!” 

She did not see the look that flitted across the 
face of Mrs. Anastasia Fish as she dropped a stitch 
in her knitting to glance up keenly at the speaker. 
Mrs. Fish was always knitting when there was noth¬ 
ing else to do—knitting one of her eternal com¬ 
forters which Captain Caleb sported in the cold 
weather. Mehitable hurried on. 

“What’s to do?” she demanded of the assembled 
members at large. “We can’t chuck her out of the 
Auxiliary, ’cause we didn’t let her in, thank the 
Lord! But we’d ought to take a vote that any 
woman that speaks to her will be expelled.” 

Mrs. Fish laid down her knitting and grimly 
arose. She went into battle in earnest. 

“Then you kin fire me out right now, ef ye do,” 
she shot out at them. “Maybe Martha’s been 
foolish and done wrong—I dunno. Who ain’t, some¬ 
time or other? But I speak t<> worse’n her every 


THE RIVER ROAD 


127 


day—and I’m goin’ to treat her decent. And that’s 
flat. Now ye go ahead and vote, ef ye want to!” 

This, of course, would never do. Agree or not 
with Anastasia Fish, each member knew that the 
large lady’s position was unassailable. She might do 
as she pleased, with the full assurance that she would 
not be voted out. For one thing, she was too 
valuable a member. Even had she not been the wife 
of the town’s richest man and leading citizen, she was 
valuable for her own energetic self. She was ad¬ 
mittedly the best chowder cook in the neighborhood, 
as others than Captain Hen could testify—the 
most valuable member they had for their Washing¬ 
ton’s Birthday and Fourth of July celebrations—and 
the best hand in the entire club for doing things when 
things needed to be done that involved executive 
capacity and hustle. No, Anastasia Fish’s position 
in the club was secure. But she had spoken, and was 
not through speaking, though she was through with 
any active club meeting for the night. She reached 
down and gathered up her knitting, but when she 
straightened up her eyes were on Mehitable Sands 
and Ma Tisdale, though she spoke to all inclusively: 

“You all make me sick!” she sniffed, “and besides, 
I’m hungry. Prob’ly some of them men folks we 
promised alius to feed on club meetin’ nights be, too, 
while we set here a-slanderin’—” 

With all pennants flying, Mrs. Anastasia Fish 
sailed out of the room, much like a ship under full 
canvas. 

So the ostracism of Martha Tisdale, instead of 


128 


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being officially proclaimed, was left to the individual 
choice of the members—all of whom but one or two 
warm admirers and adherents of Mrs. Fish, declared 
their intention to cut her dead. 

Captain Tony Keeney was no longer alone when 
Martha’s champion had made her labored way down 
the steep stairs into the main club room. Captain 
Lem had “come aboard” and the checker game was 
making as fair progress as might be expected of 
players who were all too conscious of the feminine 
buzz above decks. 

Captain Caleb and Captain Hen, too, had wan¬ 
dered in from somewhere—and Ozra Hemingway, 
keen on the scent of home-cooked food, and the 
gossip he knew would be disseminated when the 
Auxiliary meeting had dispersed. 

Mrs. Fish had not trimmed a single sheet when 
she sailed into the room and made for the well-filled 
basket she had stored in the club lockers. For a 
moment, so intent was she on her own indignation, 
that she did not speak. But there was not one of the 
men present who did not know that the calm was only 
temporary, and as Captain Tony mumbled under his 
breath to Captain Lem, they were in for some high 
weather for the clouds about “were a scud of 
sailors.” Before her first words, the old men shifted 
their positions uneasily. Even Ozra, anxious as he 
was for women’s words—though not those of Mrs. 
Fish—glanced about uneasily for a means of exit 
should it become necessary to beat a strategic retreat. 

The checker game came to an abrupt close, as the 



THE RIVER ROAD 


129 


two captains moved toward the rear windows in a 
roundabout way. Mrs. Fish was energetically set¬ 
ting the place to rights before donning her big apron 
for her turn in the galley. Surreptitious glances 
shot her way showed the fear of the old mariners, 
but they were carefully-veiled glances, for none of 
them cared to bring down on his head the wrath of 
Mrs. Caleb Fish, however much it might not be a 
vituperative wrath, but still it was words—women’s 
words. Then Mrs. Fish spoke. 

“Wal,” she demanded, as she stood with both 
hands parked on her capacious hips, “ain’t nobuddy 
goin’ to help me? S’pose you men ain’t got nuthin’ 
to do but sit on yer britches, and we wimmen a- 
breakin’ our necks to feed ye up on club nights.” 

Captain Lem took off his hat and sighed prodi¬ 
giously. 

“Guess I’ll be gittin’ down to th’ wharf,” he said, 
as he sidled toward the door. But Mrs. Fish was 
not noticing him. Her gaze was on Ozra Heming¬ 
way, who discreetly but ostentatiously moved away 
from her as she passed him. 

“Humph!” she snapped. “I won’t bite yer, Oz 
Hemingway, even if I’d like to.” 

It was Captain Caleb who approached her meekly, 
took up the big basket and turned toward the galley, 
a move which caused a flicker of amusement to cross 
the face of the bachelor, Captain Hen, who missed 
no phase of it. Captain Caleb plodded obediently 
toward the galley. His spouse followed. She 
glanced keenly at him. 


130 


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“What did ye say, Caleb?” she asked. 

The big Captain sighed. 

“I wasn’t sayin’ nuthin’, Anastasia,” was the meek 
reply. 

Mrs. Fish sniffed, as she eased her ample bulk 
into the small club kitchen and took the basket her 
husband passed in to her. Captain Caleb walked un¬ 
easily toward his mates. Captain Hen sensed it was 
no proper time to comment on Captain Caleb’s mar¬ 
ital affairs, so he sought to change the subject. 

“Reckon the wimmin’s been havin’ a whale of a 
time up there to-night,” he commented. “Lots to 
talk about after what I heered Mehit Sands is been 
a-sayin . 

Captain Caleb nodded solemnly as the other went 
on. 

“True Tisdale came ashore this mornin’. I seed 
him at the wharf. Nate Sanderson was cornin’ along 
th’ street, too; ’low he met him.” 

Ozra Hemingway snorted. 

“True Tisdale ain’t never goin’ to learn nuthin’,” 
he gabbled. 

Captain Caleb turned on the little wizened gossip- 
monger with a heavy frown. 

“He ain’t the only one,” he boomed, “by godfrey! 
Not by a long shot.” 

Captain Hen was too thoughtful to notice the 
passage of arms which was a regular thing in the club 
when Ozra Hemingway was present. 

“Nate’s a trim looker, for sure,” commented Cap¬ 
tain Hen, dolefully. “Lookin’ at him that way only, 


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181 


ye can’t blame the wimmin folks takin’ to him. 
Smart young mate on a Boston packet sizes up con¬ 
siderable bettern’ a lot of water-logged hulls.” 

“Guess that’s how Martha Tisdale figgered it. 
She—” Ozra’s venom was not allowed to get under 
way. 

“Hold yer tongue, Oz Hemingway,” roared Cap¬ 
tain Caleb. 

Ozra reared back on his heels angrily, and one 
suspender snapped rhythmically as he flicked it back 
and forth with his thumb—a motion Bayporters 
knew well, as a sure index of the small sea-cook’s 
frame of mind. Let Ozra get excited, or angry, and 
his suspender strap threatened to come loose from its 
button moorings with the wild snaps its owner gave 
it. For this was just another proof that Ozra 
Hemingway was the club’s pessimist. He couldn’t 
trust anything—even the belt that held up his 
trousers. Long ago the rest of the members had 
given up the “galluses” that had so valiantly per¬ 
formed their duty in another day, and taken to the 
more modern belt. Not so Ozra. A belt he wore, 
to be sure, but he reinforced it with the suspenders 
that did principal duty in indicating his state of mind. 
The suspender snapped. He thrust his wrinkled 
face forward belligerently. 

“I pay taxes ’round here,” he snorted. “I—” 

“Mebbe—on a gas jet at th’ town hall.” Captain 
Caleb’s tone was dry, but his sarcasm no more shut 
up the small man than did his roar. 


132 


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“Now, lookee here, Caleb Fish,” he threatened. 
“I’ve tooken enough offen you—’’ 

“Then watch where ye’re sailin’.” 

Captain Caleb turned from the man contempt¬ 
uously, his last word said, but it might as well have 
been anyway, for the door opened and Ma Tisdale 
blew in. 

“Blew in” is the correct way to describe the en¬ 
trance of Trueman Tisdale’s step-mother, for on 
the instant of her arrival a somberness and drabness 
of the atmosphere was apparent, much like the 
drafty effects that preceded the doldroms of a 
tropic whaling cruise, which all good whalemen 
dreaded. 

Ma’s eyes wandered about the room critically. 

“Howdy, Mis’ Tisdale.” Cheerful soul that he 
was, it was Captain Hen who offered the lanky 
woman a greeting. But he had his trouble for his 
pains, for Ma Tisdale chose to ignore him. 

“Where’s ’Stasia Fish?” she inquired, but the in¬ 
quiry was directed at no one in particular. She 
peered into the galley. “Oh, there ye be, be ye?” 
she sniffed. “Fixin’ fer these here men what ain’t 
got a thought save for their stummicks when every¬ 
thing be as wrong as hit is—Wal, I fer one, won’t 
help this night—I’m too wrought up—the rest’ll be 
here in a minit, but as for me, I’m jest sick and 
tired—” 

She stopped her querulous plaint to glance at Ozra 
who came toward her eagerly for what he believed 
he was about to hear. 


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133 


Captain Caleb spread his legs apart, sailor 
fashion, and looked down at Ma from his great 
height, as his wife came from the galley wiping her 
hands. She didn’t seem any too pleased at Ma’s 
appearance nor her comments, either, but it was her 
husband who spoke first. 

“Wal, what seems to be the symptoms this time, 
Mis’ Tisdale?” he inquired, a bit facetiously, a 
facetiousness at which Martha’s step-mother-in-law 
took offense. She bridled as she answered: 

“And well kin you ask, Caleb Fish. Hit ain’t 
your home that’s bein’ besmirched. Seems like it 
w T as bad enough before when that—that—Martha 
and Nate Sanderson was a paradin’ before every¬ 
one—right out thar in the street—in clear daylight. 
That was scandalous enough, but now—” She 
spread her hands wide as though the subject were 
one too much for her. Captain Caleb was soothing. 

“Now, now, Mis’ Tisdale, ye ain’t fair. Martha 
ain’t hurt no one—” 

Ma Tisdale’s hands went up in the air. 

“Th’ Lord save us!” she ejaculated with an in¬ 
jured air. 

“He won’t, if ye keep yer slanderin’ tongues 
a-goin’. I fer one am sick and tired of it, too.” 
Ma Tisdale fairly jumped and even Captain Caleb 
looked surprised at the temerity of Captain Hen 
Berry as he bitterly had his say. But Captain Caleb 
would not let his shipmate show more courage than 
he. 

“So be I,” he announced firmly, but not without a 


134 


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sidelong glance at his wife, who had turned and 
seemed unconscious of the conversation, as her whole 
attention was apparently on the marine glass she was 
inspecting. 

Ma Tisdale’s shoulders shrugged angrily. “You 
men are all alike,” she averred. “What one says 
t’other stands by it.” 

“Lord!” Captain Caleb attempted an aside to 
Captain Hen, but his rumble was all too plainly 
heard. “Now ain’t that jest like a woman?” 

Captain Hen had “got away” with his first 
volley. He was encouraged. There was so much 
more he wanted to say. What time could there be 
better than this? He pulled at one side of his fringe 
of whiskers—the characteristic of him when unduly 
excited as was Ozra’s snapping of his suspenders. 
His good-natured countenance was as grim as its 
rotundity would permit. 

“If some of ye wimmin was half as free with yer 
Christian charity as ye are tryin’ to make Martha 
Tisdale’s life miser’ble,” he fairly spat out, “all I 
kin say is that life ’round this town would be lesser’n 
a floatin’ hell.” 

“Such langwidge!” Ma Tisdale wailed as she 
sought to admonish the too brave old captain. 
“Men are a lot of fools—the hull of them. Look at 
True Tisdale—” 

Captain Hen turned on his heel as though he had 
said enough. But he could not forbear one back¬ 
ward-flung opinion as he left Ma Tisdale in the 
center of the room beside the long table which she 


THE RIVER ROAD 


135 


had begun hastily to prepare for the meal, with 
hands that shook with wrath as she contemplated the 
injury her step-daughter-in-law had done her, and 
now the fact that three times in one evening she had 
found folks who took up for her. 

“I have been lookin’ at him,” said Captain Hen, 
4 ‘and thinkin’ ’bout him, too. And what I’ve got to 
say is that ’stead of goin’ on tellin’ all about him and 
everythin’, it might help a heap sight more if some 
of ye wimmin told him how to shed his infernal 
New England clussness, and let some words loose 
to his wife now and then—right words that wimmin 
have a right to expect.” 

“By godfrey!” said Captain Caleb. “An’ no one 
thought to hi’st the storm signals.” 

Captain Tony chuckled and grinned his toothless 
grin. “Storm signals?” he asked in a hoarse whisper 
that carried through the room and was even caught 
by Mehitable Sands and others of the Auxiliary who 
•were entering to aid in the supper getting. “Storm 
signals? Hurricane, ye mean—a whole shipload 
of red lanterns and signal guns! Watch out yer 
anchor chains don’t bust, Cap’n Hen.” 

And the oldest captain of them all, who was al¬ 
ways for peace save when the fighting was all left 
to Captain Lem and himself in their checker games, 
turned to watch Mrs. Anastasia Fish, and to change 
the conversation. 

Mrs. Fish, in her inspection of the marine glass, 
was peering through the wrong end. 

“Hey, there, ma’am,” Captain Tony addressed 


136 


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her. “Telescope’s meant to look out with’, not in.” 
He chuckled. 

But Mrs. Fish continued to look into the wrong 
end. She nodded over her shoulder toward where 
Ozra Hemingway was eagerly clacking in subdued 
tones with Mehitable and others of the feminine con¬ 
tingent. 

“Better turn it on some of the folks inside, I ’low,” 
she said deliberately, with a meaning that the 
gossipers could not misunderstand. 


CHAPTER XI 


T RUEMAN TISDALE, pipe in mouth, leaned 
over the rail of Ripping Reef lightship, and 
gazed in toward the brilliant lights of the big 
hotel on the Point, five miles away. The brilliance 
cut through the midnight blackness between with 
meteor-like sharpness. There was no way of distin¬ 
guishing the distance in the surrounding blackness—a 
blackness that was relieved only by the two ribbons of 
light reflected from the twin lights of the lightship, that 
cut narrow wakes in the shimmery water near at 
hand, and which, far out past the rocks, were the 
beacons that were eagerly sought by the steersmen 
of passing craft. 

The moon had not risen, and the few stars visible 
seemed far away, too far away to lighten the black¬ 
ness, or to be familiar, as they usually were, to the 
small crew of the anchored lightship whose se¬ 
questered life made them look on each star as a 
personal friend. 

It was still, too—still and calm. The big lightship 
swung with mooring chains up and down, for it was 
slack water, and no wind was stirring. It was deadly 
quiet—so quiet that small noises from shoreward 
could easily be distinguished. 

The lightship captain’s thoughts were shoreward, 
though not on the big hotel. He was inwardly 

137 



138 


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visioning his own home, on the opposite point of 
land—the home he could not see save in his mind’s 
eye, and the girl wife who waited there for him, 
and set her beacon light in the window. Trueman 
Tisdale idly wondered by what chance it was im¬ 
possible this night to see the never-varying lights in 
his own windows. 

So intent was he on his own thoughts that he 
even did not hear the musical whining of the con¬ 
certina with which the ship’s cook was entertaining 
himself, on a coiled rope on the deck behind him. 
The musician was softly crooning a chantey. When 
the words did reach the captain he smiled reminis¬ 
cently. He had heard those words so often before— 
had been taught them even in his boyhood, before 
he had been a cabin-boy—at the knee of old Captain 
Hen Berry, whose teachings were still going on 
among the youth of Bayport. 

Nasally, the cook chanted: 


u ’Bout the year i b.c., 

A gallant ship put out to sea— 

To catch a whale, and salt his tail, 

To salt the end of his tail. 

But just ’bout a mile from land 
The ship began to dance 
And ev’ry son of a sailorman 
Put on his working pants— 

His pants—his pants—his working pants. 
And down inter th’ hold they went, 

And over th’ pumps their backs they bent 
They thought they’d drown, 

But they couldn’t sit down— 

The floor was too wet to sit down—” 


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139 


What a good sort old Captain Hen was, to be 
sure! Trueman realized how concerned the old man 
had been about a bit of gossip about Martha, and 
he smiled—a musing smile. How ridiculous it all 
was—preposterous! But his smile faded again as 
his thoughts grew deeper. He was thinking, ser¬ 
iously. He had been doing a lot of it since the morn¬ 
ing Ma Tisdale had so malevolently sought to de¬ 
stroy his faith in his young wife. He was wondering 
now—wondering. Had he been altogether fair with 
Martha? How often she had begged him to leave 
the lightship and come ashore to live. Was it 
possible he had not given her a fair chance? Of 
course, it was ridiculous to imagine that anything she 
had done had been wrong—that was just Ma Tis¬ 
dale’s evil imagination, but his jaws set more tightly 
as he realized that what he had done was to leave 
the girl he had married to be the butt of Ma’s dis¬ 
like and the malicious tongue of promiscuous gossip. 

“She’s only a young girl, after all,” he murmured 
with moving lips from which no sound came. “Prob¬ 
ably she needs more looking after than I’ve given 
her—” 

Called stern, unresponsive, even believed so by 
his own wife, no one knew as Trueman Tisdale him¬ 
self knew in his own heart how untrue this was— 
how much he would have liked to have thrown off 
the mantle of repression which years of solemn com¬ 
munion with the deep and with his own thoughts had 
brought about, and to have said in words and shown 
in actions how deeply he really felt. It was his very 


140 


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(depth of feeling that made it impossible for him to 
consider for one moment that there might be one 
word of truth in what the gossips said, for, believing 
as he did himself, that marriage was all-embracing, 
was truly “for better, for worse,” it was not in his 
nature to believe that the woman to whom he had 
given his heart could think otherwise than himself. 
His faith in her was absolute—he could not imagine 
that hers might not be. 

But Captain Hen’s few words had given him dis¬ 
turbing thoughts. He had loved Martha, yes—had 
honored her—but could it be possible he had not 
protected her? And was not that part of the 
bounden duty of a man—part of his solemn contract 
of marriage? 

Trueman Tisdale mused, his thoughts far away 
from all about him. Members of the crew came on 
deck to loll under the stars and join in the hummed 
chanteys. Indistinctly he heard the engineer busy 
in the big round engine house up forward, one of 
the box-like apparatus from which reared the two 
masts with their everlasting fixed lights. He was 
vaguely conscious of the back and forth ramblings 
of Martin Avery, his first mate, who was making a 
pathway along the deck with his measured footsteps 
and turnings. 

Idly he wondered what could be bothering 
Martin. Usually he would be bent over a book at 
this time of the night, for he knew that the young 
man was preparing himself for an examination in 
the hope of going through college, the hope of his 


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141 


mother who was straining every effort to gain this 
ambition for her fatherless son. But he was too in¬ 
tent on his own thoughts. 

Again and again the lights of the big hotel came 
up before him to disturb him. Why was he notic¬ 
ing those lights more than usual to-night? They 
were always there, and he had often watched them, 
leaning over the rail smoking his pipe as he was 
now. They seemed brighter, somehow—had a 
deeper significance. Sort of a personal one, it 
seemed. As the music of the concertina stopped for 
a moment, there was also borne out to him from 
across the black waters, the sound of orchestraed 
music. 

Martin Avery paused beside the rail at which his 
captain stood. A side glance at his mate showed 
Trueman Tisdale the nervous throbbing of the 
throat of the other where it was exposed by the open- 
necked blue flannel shirt. What could be troubling 
Martin? But it was not Trueman Tisdale’s way to 
ask. He nodded toward the lights of the big hotel. 

“Must be having quite a time ashore over there 
to-night,” he commented. “Music hasn’t stopped 
since six bells.” 

For a moment the other did not answer. Then he 
burst out with a bitterness that w r as unusual for a 
man trained to the stolidness and even tenor of a 
lightship existence: 

“Folks ashore have all the best of it! I—” 

Trueman Tisdale turned and looked a moment 
into the eyes of the young man into whose depths 


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he could see by the shaft of light that cut across 
from the open door of the cabin and up the steps 
leading to the deck. 

“What is it, Martin?” he asked. What is 
troubling you—” 

It was a long way for Trueman Tisdale to go in 
other people’s affairs, but something hinted to him 
of a seriousness in this matter. Avery hesitated, 
and stammered, then he burst out: 

“It’s my mother!” he said. “She’s sick,—and—oh, 
well, you know she wants me—” 

Silence for one moment more, then came True¬ 
man Tisdale’s calm and steady tones. 

“Well, what’s to keep you from going to her, 
then?” 

Avery looked his surprise, and was boyishly em¬ 
barrassed as he tried to tell. 

“Well, you know, to-morrow’s the day you go 
ashore for your week, and I know—we all know, 
how much—and I didn’t like to ask, and—” 

The captain’s smile was grimly humorous, but the 
other saw only the smile. 

“My garden’ll keep,” he announced—“my wife, 
too,” he added inwardly—Martha just must trust 
him a little while longer, and here was duty calling 
again; duty, the thing that a Tisdale never shirked. 
He turned from the rail and hailed a passing seaman. 

“Oh, Gallup!” he called. “Take the dory and 
put Avery ashore at once.” 

As he went over the rail, only the tight hand 


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143 


clasp that his first mate gave him thanked Trueman 
Tisdale, but it was enough. He watched the boat 
out over the wake of the waters, and if there was a 
sigh, he repressed it. He would make it all up to 
Martha somehow. 

With the distant music of the hotel orchestra in 
his ears, his thoughts returned to her. Yes, things 
would have to be different. He would have to find 
some way of getting rid of Ma Tisdale. She would 
have to go. He remembered how close he had come 
to telling her so that morning in the kitchen, but it 
was the Tisdale way to go slowly and surely. But 
now that his mind was made up, it was settled. 
Trueman Tisdale would give all Bayport, not alone 
his step-mother, to understand that he would no 
longer ignore the attacks on his wife. As for Nate 
Sanderson—his lips shut grimly in earnest. Nate 
Sanderson would be attended to. 

To-morrow morning he would leave his second 
officer in charge long enough to go ashore and try 
to let Martha know his conclusions. He was de¬ 
termined, as he had never been before, to be her 
champion and guardian as well as her husband. Of 
course, he would have to give up the lightship, and 
it was not without a pang that he let his eyes rove 
over the familiar deck. The Tisdales had captained 
this so long! Never mind! He had a craft of his 
own to captain—he was needed elsewhere, and the 
Tisdale duty— 

It was not an unpleasant picture that was conjured 


144 


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up, either, in spite of the thought of living ashore. 
There would be the cozy sitting room—himself with 
slippers on his feet, sitting under the lamp on the 
center table, reading his Gazette—and he could 
vision the glimpse of Martha as she would look up 
with that lovelight in her eyes from across the table 
as she busied herself with her sewing. Happiness 
sang in his heart; contentment grew. The world was 
all right! 

An exclamation from the ship’s cook aroused him 
from his reverie. 

“Danged birds!” exploded that individual. 
“Kain’t tell night from day!” 

Trueman Tisdale turned from his position at the 
rail. 

“What’s bothering you now, Gorman,” he good- 
naturedly asked. 

The other pointed to the fluttering birds that 
circled about the mast lights, trying to find a roost¬ 
ing place, their fluttering and noise interfering with 
his own concertina music. 

“You a sailorman, and talking about Mother 
Carey’s Chickens!” Trueman was mildly remon- 
strative. 

“They bring good luck to a vessel; they drive 
away the evil spirits.” The lightship captain’s tone 
had become almost jocular. 

The musical cook got up from his coil of rope, 
his concert finished for the night. 

“Maybe,” he said, “maybe. I guess they’re spirits 


THE RIVER ROAD 

* 


145 


all right. But I wish’t some of these spirits wouldn’t 
be so danged noisy.” 

Trueman was not listening. He was following his 
own train of thought. He glanced up at the mast¬ 
head lights contentedly before he started to turn in, 
and his thoughts were songs as he contemplated his 
new resolutions. 


i 



CHAPTER XII 


M IDNIGHT came more swiftly to Martha 
Tisdale than it ever had before, in all her 
experience of keeping vigil from her bed in 
the little old-fashioned bedroom in the Tisdale home¬ 
stead, with its windows that overlooked the ocean 
and the twin lights of the lightship where her hus¬ 
band watched or slumbered. 

It did not find her tired, but emotionally ex¬ 
hausted, though she did not recognise the experience. 
Things had happened in such rapid succession; there 
was so much to think about—new. The country- 
bred girl had never really known what physical ex¬ 
haustion was; hers had been too healthy an open 
air existence, with the breath of the life-giving sea 
breezes always in her nostrils, for her to have known 
more than the passing tiredness of Nature when 
sleep time came. Now, there came over her an un¬ 
accustomed lassitude—a languor she could not ex¬ 
plain—but nerves bade her go on. 

Dorothy Merrill, pausing while she ate an ice, 
noted the feverishness of the girl’s expression. She 
laid down her plate and reached for Martha’s hand. 

“Stifling in here, isn’t it?” she asked sympathetic¬ 
ally. “Let’s have Jack take us outside. I know the 
coziest little nook out on the East porch, where we 

146 



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147 


can look out over the ocean and have the salt air 
blow some of the perfume out of our systems.” 

Down at the end of one of the hotel porches where 
it curved into a bayed nook, they found unoccupied 
chairs. They were far from the music of the in¬ 
struments, and the salt air was as soothing as 
Dorothy had believed it would be. For a few 
moments they lolled there. Then the more sophisti¬ 
cated girl sat up suddenly as she heard a new refrain. 

“Jack!” she cried to young Billings, who was 
vainly trying to make his sixth collar sit up and act 
natural, as he inserted experienced fingers between 
its perspiration-wrinkled folds and his own neck. 
“They’re playing a waltz—actually! A bas jazz! 
And it’s a waltz I haven’t heard since I was a kid 
—I learned to play it then—‘The Jolly Fellows’— 
oh, I must dance it!” 

She was on her feet and swaying to the lilt of the 
unaccustomed melody. 

“Come on!” she begged, both arms held out, but 
then she remembered her guest. “Hurry,” she said 
to the reluctant youth, “get her a partner—” 

But Martha shook her head. 

“I—I believe I’m tired a—little,” she murmured. 
“Go ahead and dance—I’ll wait for you here—it’s 
so cool and pleasant, and—” Her companions did 
not see the glance she gave seaward, nor did they 
note the specks of light that held her. 

Martha Tisdale was wondering what Trueman 
was doing—what he would say if he knew where she 
was. Oh, he couldn’t object to her having this one 


148 


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good time—this good time after the horrors of the 
days that had preceded. Her eyes held on the lights 
and she was unnoticing of the departure of Dorothy 
and Billings as the girl who had made herself her 
friend moved lightly off in dance rhythm to join the 
dancers on the floor. 

She did not know how long she sat there. The 
lassitude that had overtaken her made her dreamy. 
She was thinking of Trueman, and of—Everything 
that had been happening in Bayport seemed of so 
little consequence- 

She was roused from her reverie by the white- 
flanneled man who sauntered by. How strangely 
familiar he was. Where had she seen him before? 

The man in white flannels, with the jaunty air, 
paused a moment in front of the place where Martha 
rested. She heard a glad exclamation. She sat up 
suddenly, then— 

“Well, I’ve found you at last!” 

She looked up to see Nate Sanderson bending over 
her, fervor in his dark eyes, a light of triumph. 
There was nothing to show that the meeting was as 
much of a surprise to Nate Sanderson as it was to 
the girl in the blue evening gown. But his 
eyes took in her appearance with avidity. Never 
had he seen Martha Tisdale like this before. Never 
had he seen her so desirable. 

“Nate!” she cried, as she tried to rise, but his 
protesting hand told her to stay w T here she was. 
“How—how did you know—” 

Sanderson smiled eagerly. It would never do, 



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149 


now that Fate was playing into his hands so nicely 
to let Martha Tisdale know that he had come over 
to the big hotel with no idea of seeing her, but 
merely for the love he had of showing off himself. 
Nate Sanderson knew the value of a pair of mascu¬ 
line brown eyes; of a comely countenance; of a 
knowledge of how to dress that he had acquired 
during the years he had been mate of a Boston 
freighter and had spent so much of his time ashore 
in Boston. Truth to tell, he had come over to the 
summer resort, as he often had before, arrayed in 
all the grandeur that a good Boston tailor could 
concoct for such purposes, with the one determina¬ 
tion of parading in languid manner for the benefit 
of those women who did not dance, but instead 
haunted the porches, and who were never averse to 
the proper advances of a good-looking stranger, were 
his manners correct enough. 

Through the summer, it had been one of Nate 
Sanderson’s favorite out-door sports. But there was 
no reason for enlightening Martha Tisdale, nor of 
telling her that his encounter with her was an en¬ 
counter to which he had familiarized himself. Nate 
Sanderson had not thought of meeting Martha Tis¬ 
dale when he saw a lone beauty in a blue dress 
in a sequestered corner. But he was elated. What 
the gods provided— 

“So you thought no one knew you were here,” he 
said in hurt tone. “You wrong me. Why Martha, 
dear, I’ve haunted your footsteps—I’ve known 
wherever you went, and I thought if I waited long 


150 


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enough, you might be kind—” He stopped just the 
dramatically long enough time for her to realize his 
words, then went on hesitatingly. “You wouldn’t 
give me a chance to explain—I hadn’t a chance— 
but I so wanted to tell you how sorry I was for— 
well, you know, Mehitable and all that—” 

Martha shuddered at the thought that brought 
back Bayport to her. She had been forgetting it so 
successfully out there alone with only the other hurt¬ 
ing thought that perhaps Trueman did not care for 
her, and only cared for keeping bright those two 
lights she could see in the distance. She started to 
speak, but Sanderson forestalled her. 

“I just had to say a word, to excuse myself if I 
could. I did not mean it—up there by the ceme¬ 
tery—but oh, Martha, don’t you know, can’t you 
see—everything I’ve done, a—all the times I’ve 
come back here between trips when I might have 
gone other places—must have shown you that it was 
because I—well—” 

The man shut his lips tight as though to shut 
back the words, but they came out spasmodically, 
quite as well as those of any other seasoned actor— 
“I cannot help it—it was because I loved you— 
and loving you, I—this morning, up there with you 
alone—I forgot myself—” 

It was a plea that the most practiced player with 
affections herself could not have withstood, but 
Martha Tisdale drew back her hand, the possession 
of which the man tried to gain, as she said weakly: 


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151 


“Oh, you mustn’t—you mustn’t say such things, 
Nate—” 

His jaws shut tightly. “Who’s to say I’m not?” 
he demanded, and with a sweep of his hand toward 
the water with its distant lights. 

“Him? Huh, what does he care? No, you mustn’t 
stop me,” as she started to her feet, “I’m not 
through. There are other rights in the world—and 
to-night when I found you’d be here—I knew you 
were coming with your friend Dorothy and Jack 
Billings—” mere canny supposition on the part of 
the packet mate, it found its mark—“I decided to 
come too, to tell you some of the things I must— 
must!” 

The girl did not look up, but her eyes drifted to¬ 
ward the sea. 

“Please, Nate,” she pleaded, “please don’t say 
those things to me.” 

Sanderson regarded her for a moment, then his 
eyes, too, sought the horizon, a glance she did not 
fail to detect. 

“I wonder,” he burst out suddenly, “I wonder if 
he realizes how beautiful you are—” 

“Please, Nate, please—” she lifted her hand in 
protest as she attempted to arise, but the man 
reached for the protesting member. 

“Well, you are beautiful,” he declared, then in¬ 
sinuatingly—for Nate Sanderson knew the unsophis¬ 
tication of the girl he had set about to win, “doesn’t 
he ever tell you that?” 


152 


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Martha could only wring her hands. 

“Please, Nate, please,” she repeated, but the 
man’s answer was to fling himself down in the un¬ 
occupied chair beside her and attempt to reach for 
the distressed hands. 

“Honestly, Martha, you are—there are few like 
you and I’ve seen lots of them—in Boston, New 
York, everywhere I go—they can’t measure up to 
you—” 

Distressed, the girl turned away her head. 
SChokingly she answered. 

“You’re not being fair, Nate!” 

“Fair!” he exploded. “Fair! To whom! To 
him?” with a nod toward the lights in the distance. 
“Why should I be? Has he been fair to you—” 

“He’s my husband—” The reproof came faintly. 
But unnoticing, he went on. 

“He’s left you alone to bear the brunt of things, 
and I’m not hurting him much, I guess—” 

“What do you mean—what can you mean?” 

The girl made as if to get to her feet, but the 
restraining hand of the man made her subside. He 
bent over her tenderly. 

“Oh, Martha,” he pleaded, in the low voice that 
had so often stood him in good stead on such 
occasions, “don’t you see—can’t you see—that if you 
were my wife, I couldn’t leave you alone? He can’t 
love you. A man like him doesn’t love anyone but 
himself—” 

Half hysterically the girl aroused herself. 

“It isn’t true!” she wailed. “It isn’t true! He 


THE RIVER ROAD 


153 


didn’t leave me! He just had to go where his duty 
was—” 

One significant sharp breath left the deep torso 
of the mate of the Boston packet. 

“Duty!” he said. 

The girl shivered, but she aroused herself. 

“Nate Sanderson!” she said, with all the dignity 
that she could summon from the training of years 
where dignity had had no part. “You don’t know 
what you’re saying! Oh, why am I listening to 
you! You’re talking about my husband—True— 
he’s my husband, whatever you say—and I love 
him!” 

There was a sob at the end of the sentence. 

“But does he love you ?—that’s the question.” The 
man who plead his own cause was inexorable. He 
had found the vulnerable point—had found the 
young wife just at the time when he knew her heart 
was sore at a fancied neglect—and none knew better 
than he how to take advantage of everything that 
was granted him. 

“I’m not forgetting him,” he murmured, as he 
once more unsuccessfully tried to gain possession of 
the limp hand in the girl’s lap, “but would you just 
exactly say he was not forgetting you? You say 
he did not leave you alone? He left you alone 
enough for me to come along, didn’t he? Suppose 
I hadn’t loved you as well as I do? Suppose— 
Why, he’s leaving you all the time. What does love 
mean to him? Something he’s got—that’s all. He 
forgets you’re young and—” 





154 


THE RIVER ROAD 


“Nate Sanderson !” 

There was a warning tone in Martha’s voice as 
she struggled to her feet, a warning even the hard¬ 
ened Lothario did not fail to heed. He bowed his 
head in contrite manner. 

“Forgive me, dear,” he pleaded. “I—I couldn’t 
help it—any more that I can bear to see you un¬ 
happy. It seems to me useless to hold back 
longer. I love you—you know it—what else has 
brought me back here so often—what do you know 
about how much you have been in my thoughts, the 
haunting of you, the vision of your face wdierever I 
am, until something forces me back, no matter 
whether you’re True Tisdale’s wife or not—” 

But Martha was not looking at him. She had 
risen and turned to look out over the sea at the lights 
she could see so plainly. What if what Nate said 
were true? Her own reasoning had about brought 
her to this conclusion hours earlier. What if True 
didn’t love her—was only enduring her as his actions 
seemed to speak? What could she do—where could 
she turn? She scarcely heard the man who had 
walked to her side as she held onto the porch rail 
in her emotion. 

“You will forgive me, Martha,” he said tenderly, 
“you must! You know how my heart runs aw T ay 
with me. But there are some things I cannot unsay. 
I cannot bring myself to believe in the sincerity of 
True’s love for you or to think that your own will 
be rewarded or appreciated. He never can. What 


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155 


will your love for him ever bring you—in the future? 
What is it bringing you now?” 

Martha choked over the words, as her thoughts, 
unconsciously disloyal, flew back to the day when 
she had sobbed out her sufferings to the unheeding 
ocean. 

“What—what ever can you mean?” she half 
choked. 

“Think it over!” Nate Sanderson was nonchal¬ 
ant. He knew when he had said enough. 

“You’re happy, aren’t you? You are living, 
aren’t you? Look at all this about you to-night— 
how often can you expect anything of this sort—as 
the wife of Trueman Tisdale—” 

“What if I don’t want it—every night—” 
Martha was a bit belligerent, but she had about 
gone her limit emotionally. The dance of the night, 
the unusual surroundings; now this man who sought 
to tell her his love, no matter how unasked (though 
she could not say that it was altogether spurned, 
since it was so truly nice to think that some one 
really cared for her—forlorn her) had been too 
much for her unsophistication. But Nate Sanderson, 
versed as he was in the ways of women, saw that 
enough had been said—the seeds of discontent sown. 
Another time! His mood changed. 

“You’re tired,” he said solicitously. “Your 
friends should be taking you home. I can’t, or I 
would. I—I’m sorry, Martha, if I’ve said too 
much. It was only because I cared so much, but— 
but if there should ever be a time when you need 


156 


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me, you know I’ll do everything—everything. And 
remember this: that whatever may happen, there are 
two people in the world who w r ant you, who need 
you. I’m one. The other is—your father.” 

“No,” as her hand went up in a gesture of appeal, 
“I was not fooling you when I said that he had been 
seen working on a Boston wharf. He’s somewhere 
there, and he’s one who will always love you. He 
wouldn’t have left you if he hadn’t thought it was 
best for you. He thought you would stand a better 
chance in this God-forsaken town if they could for¬ 
get that you were his daughter, and—” 

“If I thought he needed me—” 

Martha Tisdale could not see the deceit that lay 
in the depths of Nate Sanderson’s eyes. He had 
played his last card. If Martha could be persuaded 
to go to a father who needed her, no matter 
whether that father existed or not, if once she 
could be lured away from Bayport—Nate Sander¬ 
son smiled as he thought of the prospect. His smile 
was illuminative as he contemplated his prey. But 
his voice was soft, assuring. 

“You must forget what I’ve said, Martha, dear,” 
he begged. “I forget myself so at times, but it is 
only when my heart runs away with my judgment. 
But remember this: if you ever need a friend— 
need help, say—to go to him—your father (and 
you know there is some one who will always love 
you and want you) why I—I—Martha!” and there 
was a catch in his voice as he stood humbly beside 
her, his hands extended in friendliness and pleading 
for forgiveness. 


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‘‘Martha !” he pleaded, “won’t you remember that 
there is one person in the world who is only too 
glad to do your bidding—to do all in the world he 
can to make you—happy?” 

The girl’s eyes held a far-away look as she lis¬ 
tened. As though from far away came the last faint 
strains of the encore. 

Her father! If he needed her—loved her! What 
should she do? If she decided Trueman didn’t care 
—She turned to the man at her side and her voice 
was tense as her straight young figure in its bor¬ 
rowed blue gown as she faced him. 

“Nate Sanderson,” she said, and there was a world 
of unspoken meaning in her voice, “I haven’t liked 
all you’ve said, but perhaps you mean right. The 
time may come when I’ll need a friend. I—I’ll 
remember what you’ve said. The time’s coming— 
has come—when the people in this town will have 
to let me alone—or they’ll have something to talk 
about. Then I’ll have to find my father—and—I’ll 
remember—” 

Nate Sanderson had enough experience with 
women to know that the gesture with Martha’s white 
hand meant a dismissal. But he smiled as he walked 
down the long porch. He did not believe the dis¬ 
missal was a final one. Martha Tisdale gazed long 
at the lights out at sea before she heard the laughter 
that heralded the approach of her friends. 

The twin lights five miles out at sea made their 
ribbon-blue wakes across the black water near the 
lightship. They blinked—and kept their silent 
watch. 


CHAPTER XIII 


M ORNING found Trueman Tisdale with none 
of the enthusiasm of his new resolution 
dimmed where his domestic affairs were con¬ 
cerned. Dawning clear and calm, the lightship cap¬ 
tain felt no compunction in leaving the ship in the 
hands of the second officer, even though his first 
mate be gone. Besides, he reckoned he would be 
able, after seeing to a few things on shore, to be back 
at his station before noon. There were things to 
which he must attend. 

His first chance came before he had been expect¬ 
ing it. Instead of making for the cove behind the 
point near his home, or landing on the small stony 
beach in front of it as usual, he had made directly 
for the Bayport wharf. The morning was yet early 
when he stepped ashore and walked along the town’s 
main street, bent on stopping at the Neptune Club 
for a word with whomever might be around and 
stirring so early, before he should go to his home 
and see Martha, and tell her what he intended 
doing in the way of making things easier for her. 

Trueman had not gone the distance of two city 
blocks when the first person he met was Nate San¬ 
derson, jaunty, immaculately dressed, and showing 
no indication of the fact that he had been up till the 

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159 


small hours of the morning, when he had surrep¬ 
titiously watched Martha Tisdale go home with 
Dorothy Merrill, instead of back to the Tisdale 
home where she might reasonably expect a berating 
from Ma Tisdale unless she explained fully her 
reason for the late hours. Nate Sanderson had 
smiled when he saw this, and had in mind how it 
might some time or other be used to his own ad¬ 
vantage, always supposing, however, that Dorothy 
Merrill was not in close enough touch with the Bay- 
porters to refute anything he might say. 

Sanderson swung along as though the world were 
his oyster. He had started out the morning much 
pleased with himself. He had in mind the conver¬ 
sation with Martha of the night before, and he be¬ 
lieved that it was only a matter of time now until he 
could accomplish the one purpose which had been 
bringing him so much to the small town where he 
used to live—to persuade Martha Tisdale to 
leave her husband for him. What might happen 
then—well, it was not much Nate Sanderson’s way 
to consider what might eventually happen to his vic¬ 
tims. That was left in the laps of the gods—a 
question of the survival of the fittest, and Nate 
Sanderson had no question in his mind of his own 
fitness, as he sought his prey wherever it might be 
found. 

There had already been one disturbing incident, 
though, to break in on the pleasant mental considera¬ 
tions attending his morning stroll. He had not re¬ 
covered from that annoyance entirely when he ran 


160 


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into Trueman Tisdale, and he was not at his best, 
therefore, in the resulting encounter. Early as he 
was out himself, he had not been earlier than Cap¬ 
tain Caleb Fish, who was on his way to the water 
front, where his fishing outfit was stored. Captain 
Caleb loved his lobster pots and his nets and tackle. 
And he loved every line of his awkward-looking 
motor boat. Fie pleased himself with the thought 
that it was a miniature replica of his last whaling 
charge. With its blunt bow and its square stern it 
did resemble, in a small way, the old Charles Colgate. 

Captain Caleb, catching sight of Nate Sanderson 
in the offing, forgot for the moment what had 
brought him out at the early hour. He forgot 
everything except the forlorn face of Martha, and 
the big lightship captain, her husband, whom he had 
ever called friend. The Boston freighter’s mate was 
somewhat jarred out of his nonchalance as the huge 
figure of the ex-whaling skipper peered into his eyes 
as he rolled alongside. 

“Mornin’, Cap’n Caleb,” offered Nate as Captain 
Caleb stopped short at sight of him. 

Captain Caleb’s greeting was not so hearty. 

“Hello, Sanderson,” he said, and he looked fixedly 
at him. “What ye been doin’?” 

“Why, walking along, and looking the town over, 
and—” Nate was inclined to be humorous, but there 
-was no humor in the keen eyes of the other man as 
he came closer. 

“You ain’t answered me yet,” he observed. “What 
ye been doin’, I asked.” 


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161 


The packet mate bristled. “Mindin’ my own 
business a good part of the time, and—now see here, 
Cap’n Caleb,” as something in the captain’s eyes 
showed him he might expect belligerency and that 
the meaning was deeper than the words, “you heard 
what I said—and—well, I ain’t beholden to you 
none—” 

A snarl came into the voice of Captain Caleb 
Fish as he listened. Sanderson retreated a step as 
the doughty old whaler came closer, a threatening 
look in his eyes. 

“By godfrey, that’s about the only answer I’d 
expect from you,” he said, then his hand clinched 
as his emotion got the better of him. “I ain’t makin’ 
no threats,” he observed, as he saw the other step 
backward, “nor I ain’t goin’ to do nuthin’—not now, 
but what I am tellin’ ye, Nate Sanderson, is that ye 
keep away from True Tisdale’s eel pots—or gol dern 
ye, it’ll be the wuss for ye!” 

Sanderson laughed contemptuously, but there was 
no mirth in the laughter. He was uneasy, in spite 
of all efforts to be nonchalant. Captain Caleb made 
as if to brush by him, to go on his way. Then he 
stopped and turned his head to regard the packet 
mate on the sidewalk. His next words were full 
of meaning. 

“Leavin’ soon, Sanderson?” 

Nate shrugged, as he reached for a match and 
scratched it on the sole of the white shoe which he 
had not changed since the night before, since he was 


162 


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out and about without ever having gone through the 
ceremony of going to bed. 

“Probably,” he answered, unconcerned. 

“By godfrey!” exploded Captain Caleb, “Seems 
like a good idea.” 

The emphasis of the huge skipper’s voice had 
finally reached the man who had no regard for 
others’ feelings. 

“Maybe I’ll carry it out,” he said angrily; “but it 
won’t be because any one has made me.” 

Captain Caleb had said his last word, though, and 
had no mind for further altercation. He was on his 
way to the shore with no notice of the man who 
stood watching him for a moment, with an angry 
light in his eyes. But Sanderson could not disregard 
the incident. For a moment he stood, then turned 
and swung off toward the wharf for which he had 
been headed, but something of his nonchalance had 
gone, and from the pursed up lips no whistle came. 

The man who had so avowedly come back to Bay- 
port for the purpose of seeing Martha Tisdale, was, 
after his encounter with Captain Caleb, in no good 
frame of mind to meet, at the first turning toward 
the dock, the husband of that young woman. But 
before he had warning, he had come face to face 
with Trueman Tisdale, just off the lightship and 
ready to take up the cudgels in behalf of his wife. 

Trueman’s shoulders straightened as he saw the 
packet mate, and it was with the curtest of nods 
that he recognized Sanderson’s greeting as that in¬ 
dividual sought to slip by him and on his way. There 


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163 


was a slight pause, and Tisdale stood still, with a 
hand upraised to stop the other’s progress. 

“Well, Sanderson,” he said unhumorously, “we 
meet early—though not often. No,” as the other 
started off unheeding the upraised hand, “don’t be 
in a hurry—I’m glad I met you—I’ve been wanting 
to have a talk with you.” 

Sanderson’s expressive shoulders under their semi- 
nautical jaunty blue coat sleeves again shrugged. 

“All right,” he said carelessly. “I’m listening.” 

But the lightship captain did not speak for a mo¬ 
ment. With deliberation he brought forth from his 
pocket his bag of tobacco and still deliberately, he 
began to load his pipe. When he did speak his eyes 
were not on the waiting man. 

“Wonder what brings you to town so often, San¬ 
derson?” he queried, coolly and collectedly. “You 
gave up coming down here a long time ago. You 
haven’t any folks here any more; what’s the at¬ 
traction?” 

A little of his usual poise lost, not only from 
this meeting with Tisdale and the latter’s calmness, 
but from his previous experience with Captain Caleb, 
Sanderson was a bit uneasy as he answered with 
another question. 

’“Why—er—that’s a queer question, Tisdale— 
what are you driving at?” But before he could 
obtain an answer, his pugnacity returned and his jaw 
was thrust out as he asked nastily: “Has any one 
been saying anything—that I—” 


164 


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Trueman Tisdale, still calm, possessed, lighted his 
loaded pipe as he answered. 

“No, not directly, but—” There was just the 
dramatic pause that goes for effectiveness, as he 
veered off to another topic. “It would be just as 
well for you, Sanderson, if you didn’t come to town 
quite so often—’’ 

“You wouldn’t say that, True Tisdale, unless you 
had a pretty good reason. Now, what is it?” with 
all his bluster returned, in his idea from the calmness 
of True Tisdale that the other was not especially in¬ 
terested. “Do you mean—” 

Martha Tisdale’s husband shook the hot ash from 
the pipe from which he had taken but a few puffs. 
He put it in his pocket. Then he took one step 
toward the man he had stopped in the street, and his 
eyes looked levelly into the shifting ones of Nate 
Sanderson. 

“What are you thinking it might be?” he asked, 
his voice low and clear. “I seem to remember,” he 
went on, “that there’s a passage in the Bible which 
says something about coveting what belongs to 
others. Do you recall it, Sanderson?” 

Sanderson’s sneer was less covert. 

“Maybe so,” he answered, with an attempt at his 
old nonchalance. “Haven’t read up much in it 
lately, but—” 

“Might be well to keep that passage in mind, 
Sanderson,” said Trueman Tisdale, his gaze never 
faltering from the other. “Pretty good advice, that.” 
And then, as though he knew that his meaning had 


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165 


sunk fully in, his mood changed in a moment. His 
face became less grim, and his eyes tilted skyward. 
“Fairish kind of weather we’re having,” he ob¬ 
served. “When do you sail?” His gaze came back 
to rest on the mate’s face. 

Sullenly that person allowed himself to answer. 

“Loading at Boston, now; reckon we’ll sail in a 
day or two.” 

“So soon?” Trueman Tisdale’s smile was bland. 
“Then you’ll have to go back to-day, won’t you?” 
There was a quality of warning in the lightship cap¬ 
tain’s voice which, despite his smile, could not fail 
to impress. Obviously the packet mate was dis¬ 
turbed. His eyes attempted to break away from 
Trueman Tisdale’s steady gaze. 

“Yes—” he faltered. “I—I’ll be going back to¬ 
day.” 

Tisdale smiled his slow, engaging smile. 

“Long trip?” he asked. 

“New Orleans.” 

“Don’t think I’d like that, exactly. Keeps one 
away too long.” 

Nate Sanderson had had enough. He turned to 
swing off toward the dock, but with little of the 
assurance with which he had begun his journey. 

“Every man to his liking,” he flung back. “I’d 
go crazy on a lightship.” 

Trueman Tisdale’s smile was satisfied as he 
watched the other man on his way. Then he turned 
and went slowly toward the club. It was in his 
mind to see Captain Hen and Captain Caleb before 


166 


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he should go home to Martha, and anyway, it was 
early yet, and Martha would probably not be up for 
a time. 

But Martha Tisdale was up. She had not 
rested easily during her night at Mrs. Lou Barzum’s 
with Dorothy Merrill, and had left after an early 
breakfast. At first she had meant to go directly 
home, but as she had thought of Ma Tisdale and 
what she might expect from that shrewish relative, 
her heart had failed her. She would put off the 
meeting as long as possible. It occurred to her that 
she might go to the post office for the early mail, and 
by so doing would not be so likely to encounter 
Mehitable or any others who were doing their best 
to make life miserable for her. 

To her discomfort, Mehitable was before her. 
On her entrance into the low little room with its 
metal letter boxes lining one side of the wall, behind 
which the postmaster was already roaming about 
with an air of keeping busy, and its high desk 
attached to another wall, the first thing she saw was 
the elderly spinster deep in conversation w T ith Ozra 
Hemingway, and a group of her intimates. At first 
Martha did not catch what they were saying. But 
when she saw them turn their backs in obvious mean¬ 
ing at her timorous greeting, she went with high held 
head and burning cheeks to her own box and busied 
herself with opening it. Mehitable’s voice came 
distinctly to her. 

u And when a woman’s husband comes ashore in the 
morning,” she was saying pointedly, “and never goes 


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167 


near his home, but just hits it up for the Neptune 
Club, why then I say—” 

It was enough. It was too much. Martha Tis¬ 
dale’s cheeks tingled. What did Mehitable mean? 
Was Trueman ashore, and she did not know it? 
Then it must be the truth, what she had guessed— 
that Trueman did not want to see her, did not care— 
did not even care what the people of Bayport were 
saying. She must find out for herself whether 
Mehitable Sands was speaking truthfully when she 
said that Trueman Tisdale was ashore. Without 
another glance in the direction of the eager gossips, 
she turned and fled to the street. 

At the door she almost ran over Mrs. Lem 
Tooker and her gangling daughter, Lizzie, but she 
did not fail to note how they turned their heads aside 
and seemed not to hear her murmured words of 
apology. So that was it? That was how they 
meant to treat her—these people of Bayport to 
whom she had never done any harm! Oh, it was 
unbearable! She must find Trueman; must make 
him do something about it— 

To Martha Tisdale it seemed that the whole town 
had got up earlier than usual in order to discuss her 
and to make things as unhappy as possible. She 
was more than confirmed in this when, as she rushed 
into the Neptune Club, intent on finding her husband 
and putting her plea to him once more to come home 
to her and protect her, a plea she was wildly making 
up her mind would be her last. The first thing she 
heard was the strident tones of Ma Tisdale’s voice, 


108 


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raised, as usual, in denunciation of her step-daughter. 

“What right have you to tell me what I shall 
say?” Ma Tisdale was demanding, and there was 
a harshness to her voice and a hint of fight to come 
in her attitude that Martha was quick to remark. 
“Here I am telling you—” 

Trueman’s soothing tones came to Martha’s ears, 
but what he said she did not hear. She was wildly, 
blindingly angry, resentful of the attitude of her step¬ 
mother and other Bayporters who had so gratui¬ 
tously sent her to Coventry, and so intent on believing 
only evil of her when her own conscience told her 
she had done no wrong, unless she could accept the 
single prick that came with the knowledge that she 
had attended a dance the night before without True¬ 
man’s knowledge. But she intended to tell him. 

Ma Tisdale burst out furiously. 

“I’ll say that and a whole lot more before I’m 
through, True Tisdale! I’ll tell them what she is 
and what she’s done—out all night last night, and 
she’s—” 

Like a young whirlwind, eyes flashing and lips 
tense with the excitement of defending herself, 
Martha Tisdale burst upon her step-mother-in-law 
and her husband into the center of the room where 
they were holding their conference alone. Not even 
the regulars had appeared as yet, but somehow it had 
come to Ma Tisdale’s ears that Trueman had gone 
to the club, and she did not wait for Martha to fore¬ 
stall her in what she had to say. Tense in every 
muscle, her hands clenched till the nails bit into the 


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169 


flesh, the young wife faced her traducer. Her voice 
was sibilant as she fairly hissed: “Don’t say it! 
Don’t!” 

“Phaugh!” said Ma Tisdale, as she turned away. 
“You’ re a fine one to tell me what I can or can’t say, 
ain’t you—you, w T ho are nuthin’ but—” 

“Don’t say it!” repeated Martha Tisdale, and the 
words came through clenched teeth. Her eyes went 
to her husband and there was an appeal in her sob 
as she went on: “Oh, I haven’t done anything—I 
haven’t! What can she tell you, or anybody else 
but lies! Lies!” Her hands went out to Trueman, 
and in a moment, her head was buried on his breast. 
“Oh, True! Trueman!” she sobbed. 

How much Trueman Tisdale would have given at 
that moment had his nature not been the repressed 
one it was, he alone knew. What would he have 
given to be able to take that sobbing little creature to 
his heart, to soothe her, to tell her that nothing 
mattered save that they loved each other! But he 
could not. Something inside of him that would have 
made this possible still held him back—the bands 
were still unbroken. Only his hand went up to 
smooth the girl’s dark hair as she sobbed. Oh, she 
thought, if he would only make this the end of it 
all—would only tell Ma Tisdale that she and all 
the others must leave her alone. But there was no 
hint of passion or that he considered the matter 
seriously as he merely patted his wife’s shoulder, 
and asked: “There, there, now, Martha, what does 
all the trouble seem to be about?” 


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Before she could answer, though, Ma Tisdale 
had forestalled her, Ma Tisdale, who was not handi¬ 
capped by sobbing or a need to gather her forces for 
a fresh attack. 

‘Til tell you what it is all about!” she broke in 
hastily, and with a voice of acidity. “Why, this— 
this wife of yours she wan’t home all night last night, 
and Nate Sanderson—” 

Trueman’s voice was calm as he nodded in answer. 

“I know—” he said. “She spent the night with 
Miss Merrill—met young Billings with Captain 
Hen’s boat and he told me how they’d been over to 
the Point, and—” 

A great sigh left Martha Tisdale’s breast. Then 
Trueman already knew; he didn’t object. She lifted 
her head from his shoulder to face Ma Tisdale. 

“You see? You see?” She exclaimed eagerly. 
“There was nothing wrong with it—” 

Ma Tisdale sniffed as she viciously pulled a chair 
toward her and dropped into it, as though to settle 
herself for an argument. 

“How does anybuddy know there wan’t?” she 
demanded. 

“Well, now, Ma, I wouldn’t just exactly say 
that—” It was Trueman’s sole remonstrance, but 
at its mildness Martha flared, as she whirled on Ma 
Tisdale. 

“Plow can you say such things—how can you 
think such things!” She hurled out in her outrage. 
“How dare you—” 

Trueman Tisdale, little as had been his experience 


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171 


with women, was nonplused, as helpless as a child 
trying to find out the reason for electricity. He put 
out a hand toward Martha. 

“Now, now, Martha,” he said hesitatingly, “you 
just leave her to me—I’ll attend to things—” 

But Ma Tisdale was on her feet in a moment. 
The situation did not call for sitting calmly. 

“You’re a fool, Trueman Tisdale!” she hissed. 
“A fool—with his eyes closed!” 

“Maybe; maybe!” Trueman nodded, and there 
was a suspicion of a smile about his lips. Even yet 
Trueman Tisdale could not seem to take this matter, 
this tempest in a teapot, as he mentally characterized 
it, seriously. “But I’ll risk it,” he added slowly. 

Ma Tisdale threw out both her hands in an angry 
gesture. 

“Oh! oh!” she shrieked. “I’m done with you— 
both of you—you standin’ up for her—” The 
enmity in the last word made itself felt as a living 
thing. For a moment, Martha seemed about to 
speak, but at a gesture from her husband was silent, 
even though there was hurt wonderment in her eyes 
that Trueman could allow even Ma Tisdale to go 
so far. He could not, however, stem the flood of 
Ma Tisdale’s tirade. 

“Oh! oh!” she repeated furiously. “Now I’m 
more sartin than ever that I’m right—no good will 
come of it, I’m tellin’ you— No good will come 
of it.” 

With a last shaft of enmity from her spectacled 
eyes toward Martha, she flounced toward the door 


172 


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and out. Behind her the door banged angrily. Just 
for a moment, Martha Tisdale stood looking at the 
still quivering door. Then it was with outflung 
hands that she turned to her husband as she heart- 
brokenly cried: “Oh, Trueman, Trueman! I hate 
them! I hate them all!” 

“That won’t help none.” Trueman had the 
manner of placating a child, an attitude that he had 
no reason for knowing was so infuriating to the wife, 
who believed he did not care enough even to protect 
her. 

“I can’t help it!” she said, doggedly. “I do!” 

“I’d try to help it if I was you,” he remonstrated, 
but Martha was not listening. All the pent-up 
passion of the last few days was loosening within 
her. Blindly she started to pace the floor. 

“Oh, why do they keep driving me and driving me 
when I’m doing no wrong?” she burst out 
passionately and as though addressing her query to 
another than Trueman. She scarcely heard his soft 
reply. 

“Some people seem to be that way, Martha.” 

“It isn’t fair! It isn’t fair!” 

She stopped suddenly to confront her husband 
who had stood awkwardly in his same position 
throughout the painful scene. She scarcely heard his 
murmured: “I know, Martha, I know—” She rushed 
on. 

“Oh, Trueman, I’m asking you—I’ve asked you 
so many times before—please —please give up the 
lightship—be with me! I’ll go anywhere—do any- 


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173 


thing—work my fingers to the bone—to be away 
from all this—” 

Trueman Tisdale shook his head sadly. 

“No, girl,” he said slowly. “It wouldn’t do— 
We’ve got to stick it out here—” 

“Please— please, Trueman,” there was a break 
in his wife’s voice in her pleading, “come ashore, 
won’t you? Be with me—help me!” 

Once again Trueman Tisdale experienced the 
smothering sensation he had come to know so well— 
the feeling of helplessness at his lack of words when 
he wanted to open his heart to his wife, and could 
not. She must believe him! Have faith in him! 
What had he ever done that she should not? And 
surely she could see, must know, without any words 
from him, that his faith in her was absolute. He 
knew it must be hard for the girl, but he felt sure 
that when he had got rid of Ma Tisdale, as he in¬ 
tended doing, and the clatterers had said all they had 
to say, that everything w T ould be all right. Then 
Martha could look back on the experiences she be¬ 
lieved so hard to-day and laugh at them. 

Trueman Tisdale was not a quitter. He did not 
want his wife to be one; he could not encourage her 
in any such notion. Slowly he shook his head. 

“Some day, Martha—some day,” he told her. 
“But I can’t come now—” 

She plucked at his sleeve. “But to-day you will, 
won’t you, Trueman?” she begged. “Oh, say you 
will—just for to-day! Oh, I want you so—need 
you. Say you will—please!” 


174 


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But there was no response from the man whose 
sleeve she clutched. Again Trueman’s head only 
shook. For a moment he thought to tell her why 
he could not stay ashore to-day—of Avery—every¬ 
thing. But his lips shut tightly when it surged over 
him that his wife must believe him without explana¬ 
tions. Some day he would tell Martha why he had 
not heeded her pleadings to-day. But, now—now, 
she must believe in him, as he did in her—without 
question. 

“Not to-day, Martha,” he said. “There are 
reasons, but—well, we’ll talk it all over some time.” 
He seemed so little interested to the girl who could 
not look deep into his heart to know the driving im¬ 
pulses that made him seem to her warm emotional 
nature not only hard, but uncaring. Her hand 
dropped from his sleeve as she turned away listlessly. 

“There’s nothing to talk over,” she told him, and 
there was a touch of bitterness in her voice as she 
added: “I’m only asking for what I have a right— 
the protection a husband should give a wife. There 
can’t be any question in your mind—nothing to talk 
over, to discuss—you just will—or you won’t—” 

It was as though years had suddenly been added 
to her buoyant youth that she turned and slumped 
toward the door. She was so tired—so tired! She 
scarcely heard his surprised: “Going?” as she opened 
the door and slipped through. She must get out¬ 
side. Must have a chance to think things over for 
herself. There was so much to think of—so much 
to do in some way. 


THE RIVER ROAD 


175 


Once again Trueman had shown he did not care 
for her. Her mental vision could not show her that 
at the very moment of her departure, the man whom 
she thought had failed her, was tenderly thinking of 
her as he might have of a hurt child, telling himself 
how it would all be right for her when he gave up 
his post the next week and came ashore for good. 
But he had not been able to tell her of these things. 
There was the New England repression—there were 
the effects of the long, long hours with only the wide¬ 
ness of the sea for companionship—the sea that 
listened while a man thought and thought—and 
never answered back. 

Before his more leisurely progress had brought 
him to the door through which his wife had gone, 
Trueman Tisdale heard the voice that sung out from 
outside the club rooms. 

“Look out for dem steps, Mis' Martha. De 
debbil’s in ’em an’ makes hit easy to slip an fall.” 

Trueman’s face wore a half smile as he reached 
the doorway to the street. Almost to the corner was 
Martha, dashing along madly as though her business 
were in a great rush. After her looked the fish 
peddler, Shiner, whose admonition about the steps 
Trueman had heard, and the old negro’s two shining 
rows of teeth which showed when he turned to greet 
the lightship captain belied the appearance of age 
of his half bald, grizzled pate, which shone in the 
morning sunlight—a pate from which he had removed 
the battered old hat that was as much of a fixture in 


176 


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Bayport and as familiar as the iron fountain in the 
public square. 

Shiner looked up across the cart of fish he pushed 
and stopped while the moisture from his wares wet 
the dust of the street in front of the club and sent 
up an aroma to which fishing Bayport was 
accustomed. 

“Mornin’, Trueman,” he called with the assurance 
of a character that was as fixed as the winding dirt 
streets of Bayport. “Seems like Mis’ Martha was 
sho’ in sum hurry, yassah!” 

Trueman smiled. “We all get that way some¬ 
times,” he observed. 

“Yassah,” Shiner’s bald head nodded emphasis. “I 
dun noticed dat. But,” and his keen old eyes sought 
Trueman’s in a knowing way that was disconcerting, 
“den dere’s times when we’all’s powerful slow. 
Seems lak dey’s times when a man kin say more 
nothin’ dan anythin’, and dey’s times words count, 
Trueman, words count. Sellin’ fish an’ hearin’ things 
tells a man a lot ’bout old horse human nature dey 
never knew before—yassah.” 

For a moment Trueman Tisdale’s eyes held on the 
old negro whose enigmatical words told him the 
peddler meant more than his mere words conveyed. 
But he would not question him. Something rose up 
in him to resent everything. If the whole town was 
talking—if even this old peddler knew so much about 
his, Trueman’s, affairs, then things had come to a 
fine pass. He would not stand it—he would change 


< 


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177 


matters and soon— Abruptly he leapt down the 
three remaining steps. 

“Well, Fm in something of a hurry myself, 
Shiner,” he said. “Got to be getting back to the 
lightship—time’s up.” 

As he swung down the street, he did not look back 
to see the sad wagging of the old peddler’s head as 
he lifted the handles of his cart and paddled his way 
on in the opposite direction. 

“Humph!” observed the old philosopher as he 
shoved a wriggling speckled haddock back into the 
cart from which it threatened to escape. “Trubble! 
Trubble! Shiner! Ole Man Trubble’s tryin’ to do 
sumthin’ here.” He shuffled on a few feet further. 
“Trubble!” he mused, but then into his old eyes there 
came a flash of light. “But hain’t it alius de same. 
Dey kain’t be no laflin’ in dis worl’ without some 
weepin’— weepin’—” 


CHAPTER XIV 


“Ik T 0 ’ sir, I ’low th’ Nancy Ann hain’t much like 

j th’ clippers I onc’t used ter put to sea in, nor 
yet like any whaler, but when she gits agoin’ 
why they hain’t no gas boat in these waters kin beat 
her none—even if she do make a big to-do and noise 
like a dozen engines bust loose ter onc’t.” 

Captain Hen Berry was discoursing on the merits 
of the one thing that still kept him in touch with the 
sea—his grimy motor boat that was a familiar sight 
to Bayporters. 

Jack Billings, who had dropped down to the 
wharf to see that the old man was satisfied with the 
condition in which he had returned it, listened and 
nodded assent. Captain Hen patted the engine as 
if it were a living thing. The young man from the 
city smiled sympathetically. 

< ‘Those must have been great days—those days of 
whaling,” he offered. “Always thought I would 
have liked to have lived then and gone to sea. There 
was romance—” 

“Wal, I ’low so.” Captain Hen’s head nodded 
in its turn. “An’ a whole lot of trouble, too. Never 
knew when a man went out whether he was cornin’ 
back or not—many a woman’s waited and he never 
come—ye kin see where they used to watch,” his 

178 


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179 


hand swept in a wide gesture toward the houses that 
lay beyond the wharf with its clutter of casks, 
rigging, anchors, lumber, and spars, “—them’s 
Widow’s Walks I was a-tellin’ ye and Miss Merrill 
’bout t’other day. No, sir, there war no tellin’— 
they was so many things could happen to a man. 
They didn’t shoot no whales with a harpoon from 
steamers like they do to-day. Whalin’ them days 
was a two-fisted job fer th’ small crew that went out 
after the big fellers. Sometimes a man fell over¬ 
board, too; then agin they’d be hit by whales, cut 
with irons or drownded.” 

The old sailor got up from the seat of his motor 
boat and stretched himself. He seemed little 
interested in his memories, but anyone who knew him 
could have told by the twinkle of his eyes how much 
he was enjoying the interest which his auditor dis¬ 
played. 

“But it was romantic, after all,” remarked 
Billings, “and there was just as much fun as there 
was trouble, wasn’t there?” 

“ ’Low there was,” mused Captain Hen as he 
stepped out on the wharf with its strong sea smell of 
fish and paraphernalia. Another twinkle came into 
his eyes. “Yes, sir,” he repeated, “I ’low there 
was—even when some of ’em come home dead. 
Reminds me of the tale I heered once back in th’ 
days when th’ Neptune Club was young. They was 
a lot of fellers there a-yarnin’, and settin’ alongside 
was a Portugee that wasn’t sayin’ much, but 
a-listenin’. Finally, this here Portugee thought hit 


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time for him to say somethin’. He turned ’round to 
Captain Joe Billings, what was braggin’ about his 
ship. Says this Portugee: ‘They’s somethin’ our 
ship does yer ship never thought o’ doin’. We brings 
our bodies home when one of us dies at sea. Matey 
die from bite in neck by whale. We put him in a box 
and fill de box with rum. You no save man dat way. 
And Cap’n he watch box all time, but every time 
Cap’n he come on watch dat box had to be filled up 
agin. Dat dead man jest soaked hit up every time. 
You no soak dead man dat way.’ ” 

Jack Billings’ appreciative laugh was halted half 
way by the sound of running feet and a hail in a 
feminine voice—a voice that held a sob. Captain 
Hen and Jack sprang forward, as Martha Tisdale 
came flying down the narrow cobble-paved street. 
That something most disturbing had happened was 
evident from the distress in her eyes and the half 
hysterical voice as she called: 

“Oh, Captain Hen! Have you seen Trueman? 
Oh, I’ve got to see him—at once! Oh, I won’t stand 
it! I can’t!” 

Captain Plen came toward the girl and took her 
by the shoulders as he turned her to look into her 
eyes. 

“What’s th’ matter, Martha?” he asked, tenderly 
concerned. “Tell me what has happened.” 

But almost beside herself, the girl could only sob. 
It was through her broken sentences that she at last 
made herself understood. 

“And there they stood laughing at me,” she sob- 


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181 


bed, “or turning their backs as I passed—and when 
I stopped for a minute his step-mother flung it in my 
face, and—it’s a lie! A lie!” she wailed. “Oh, it 
is unbearable!” 

On the nicotine-perfumed blue jersey jacket of 
Captain Hen the young wife sobbed out her troubles. 
And though he admitted women had been an inex¬ 
plicable matter to him through his life, and some of 
them—take Mehitable Sands, for instance—“a 
’tarnal nuisance,” yet Captain Hen seemed to under¬ 
stand. There was reassurance and sympathy in the 
gnarled old hand that gently patted her shoulder 
while over it he looked toward the town with such 
black looks that could any of those Bayport women 
of whom he was thinking seen him, they would have 
known that a storm was brewing fast. 

With a quick gesture, Martha lifted her head and 
looked eagerly about her. 

“Oh, you do know where he is, Captain Hen?” 
she asked again. “They told me he had come down 
to the wharf when I went back to the club for him. 
Oh, he must have known why I left him in such a 
hurry, and that I didn’t mean anything—” Her 
voice trailed off pitifully. 

The old captain shook his head. No, he hadn’t 
seen Trueman. 

“But there, now, Martha,” he soothed. “Don’t 
ye go a-mindin’ what them wimmin says. You jest 
wait. Everythin’ will work out all right. Always 
clears after a storm.” 

Martha, how r ever, was not to be soothed. 


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182 


“Oh, I want him so, Captain Hen,” she quivered. 
“I—I need him so—” 

Hesitantly Jack Billings spoke up. 

“I think—I—er,” he offered, “well, I’m sure I 
saw his dory making its way out to the lightship as 
I was coming down here—” 

“Gone!” Martha Tisdale’s voice broke again. 
“And without a word to me—oh, it can’t be!” 

Captain Hen put her gently from him. Over his 
rubicund old face there flashed a look of determina¬ 
tion, and one hand pulled wildly at his fringe. He 
turned to his boat. 

“If ye want him that bad, Martha girl,” he said, 
“then I ’low I kin git him for ye.” 

He had given the engine a turn when Billings 
broke in. 

“But do you think—er—don’t you suppose he—” 
he began, but Captain Hen cut him short. 

“No matter what he thinks,” he said stubbornly. 
“He’s been doin’ too much thinkin’ an’ not enough 
doin’ fer come some time. And,” and there was 
the stubborn set to his jaw that other men in other 
sailor days had known so well, “I ’low I hain’t 
afered to tell no man the time of day jest so long 
as I’m able ter sit up and eat breakfast.” 

“Then I’m with you, as far as the Point, any¬ 
way,” Jack Billings said, as he loosened the rope of 
the motor boat. Then, to Martha: “Don’t you 
think you’d better come with us, as far as the cove— 
you can drop over and see Dorothy—” 

Martha Tisdale shook her head. She sat down 


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183 


on an upended cask and clasped her hands about 
her knees while she gazed off down the river toward 
the ocean in the direction of the lightship. 

“No,” she answered listlessly. “I’m going to 
stay here—I’m going to wait.” 

As the little boat put-putted down the river, 
steered by the hands of Captain Hen Berry, she 
gazed down after it, while a long-drawn sigh that 
shook her frame issued from her lips. To the river 
lapping against the piles she whispered: “Oh, how 
could he! Why doesn’t he understand! Why 
doesn’t he care! And I needed him so!” 

So intent was she on her own bitter thoughts that 
she did not hear the footfalls back of her or know 
that she was not alone until she looked up, startled, 
to see Nate Sanderson standing beside her, a smile 
lighting his face. 

“Well,” he grinned, “this is a pleasant surprise. 
About pretty early after your late night, aren’t you? 
What’s up? Going fishing?” 

Martha shook her head disinterestedly. 

“No,” she told him. “I just came down here to 
see Trueman, and—he’s gone.” There was a world 
of discouragement in her voice, but she looked up 
quickly as she heard the tones of Nate Sanderson’s. 
It was deploring, sympathetic, understanding. 

“Yes, I know,” he nodded, “I—I saw him, 
and—” 

“What did he say?” She was eager. 

But Sanderson seemed to avoid a direct answer. 
He seemed reluctant to say what he had in mind, and 


184 


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his tones were all of sympathy. Suddenly, as though 
his mind had been made up to a painful duty, he 
burst out. 

“Yes, I saw him,” he declared, “and—well, 
Martha, I know he dislikes me, but I—I tried to 
help him—and to help you—” 

“Tell me,” she demanded, and she rose quickly 
from her seat, “is he—is he coming back?” 

Again Sanderson avoided the answer direct. 

“I tried to tell him about you—about how har’d 
they are making it for you—” 

“Yes, yes—and he—he said—” 

Good actor in his own cause that he was, Nate 
Sanderson was able to hide the smile of triumph in 
his eyes as he answered dolefully: “Why, he—he 
turned from me. But you mustn’t mind it, Martha. 
He doesn’t—” 

In a stride Martha Tisdale stood in front of him, 
and her voice was tense as she demanded: “Tell me 
the truth, Nate Sanderson. I want to know every¬ 
thing. . . . What did Trueman say?” 

“It wasn’t so much what he said,” he went on, 
hypocritically keeping up his sympathetic manner, 
“Oh, please, Martha, don’t make me tell you—” 
“What did he say? I must know.” There was 
a hard, metallic ring to the girl’s voice as her hands 
clenched so tightly that the knuckles showed white 
under the browned skin. For just a moment the man 
seemed to be considering. 

“Well,” he burst out suddenly, “I—I hate to tell 
you, Martha—but if you must know—why, well, he 


THE RIVER ROAD 


185 


said that what people say won’t hurt you any, and— 
and—he—he said he’d see you later.” 

The sob that broke from the young wife’s breast 
was almost a groan. She turned to look longingly 
down the river. Then she spoke brokenly. 

“He—could—say—that—” 

“I tried, Martha, I tried.” She was hardly con¬ 
scious of what Nate was saying, but his words, never¬ 
theless, sank in. “I tried, but I couldn’t make him 
listen. You know how he felt—what he’s been 
thinking about me—” 

He reached for one of the girl’s hands to offer 
his sympathy, but she pulled it away as she stood 
gazing seaward. He knew he could afford to wait. 
This was the one opportunity for which he had been 
looking. It was his best play, this play of sympathy. 
And the sympathy in his voice was unmistakable as 
he broke out: “And I—I have had to stand by and 
listen—to their damned lies, for I haven’t the right 
to protect you—” 

Too dazed to pay much heed to the man before 
her, Martha’s eyes were still on the river and the 
blue ocean in the distance as she whispered, half me¬ 
chanically: “How—could—he—how could he—go 
away—and leave me—now. At this time—when I 
need him most?” She did not even seem to know 
that Sanderson had at last possessed himself of one 
of her hands. She let it lay limply in his fervent 
grasp. It was good to be understood—to have 
someone who sympathized. Suddenly, something 
seemed to break. From her limp attitude she 


186 


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brought herself up with a jerk, and her eyes flashed 
as she turned them on Sanderson. 

“Nate,” she shot out, “you have told me you 
would help me if the time ever came that I needed 
you—” 

She stopped him with uplifted hand as he started 
to reply. 

“That time has come. You’ve told me you would 
help me find my father—and I have got to find him. 
I need him; probably he needs me, too. And he at 
least will protect me, and he has the right. No, no, 
let me think a moment,” as her hands pressed over 
her eyes. “He—he—said it didn’t matter—he’s 
gone back out there—leaving me—” 

The hands came down from her eyes and she 
faced Sanderson determinedly. “Yes, Nate, I will 
accept your offer. I will let you help me—for I’m 
going to my father—who cares!” 

It was well for Martha Tisdale’s peace of mind 
that she did not see the flash of triumph that lighted 
Nate Sanderson’s black eyes as he turned to humbly 
follow her from the wharf. 

• t '«! * l.! i.] 

A perfectly good pair of suspenders was ruined 
forever for Ozra Hemingway as a result of what he 
saw just two hours later as he lounged behind the 
baggage truck at the Bayport railroad station. Ozra 
was usually lounging on that platform about that 
time, for no one ever knew just what might or might 
not happen at train time, and besides, it was at a time 
of day when there was little likelihood of anything 


THE RIVER ROAD 


187 


going on at the post office, for the women were 
usually occupied with the dinner getting; nor at the 
Club, either, for that matter, for the men folks were 
pretty well interested in their stomachs at the same 
time, also. Therefore, it was left for Ozra Heming¬ 
way to see the noon train through in lonesome 
solitude, though he had company for any other 
trains of the day. 

The scarcity of people about the station at noon, 
too, may have had something to do with what Ozra 
Hemingway saw—that something that made him 
snap his suspenders until one clasp came neatly off 
and flew straight across the cobbled street where he 
let it lay to be hunted another time. There was 
something for Ozra Hemingway more important to 
do than hunt for suspender buttons. So his hand 
clutched wildly for the accustomed elastic, hardly 
minding that it was not there—any more than that 
for once he w T as compelled to trust to the trustworthi¬ 
ness of a belt to hold up his breeches, which hung 
loosely from his skinny hips and legs. In spite of all 
their leanness, though, those legs could still make 
time.and they broke all records as their owner half 
hobbled, half sprinted up the street. He was a little 
uncertain just where he was going. 

The one thing of which he was certain was that 
he was in a hurry. There hadn’t been anything so 
interesting for the town gossip to tell for a long time; 
and it was certain that he alone knew it. 

It would be useless to go to the post office, he 
knew; besides, the club was nearer. He turned down 


188 


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the main street and brought up breathlessly in front 
of the old West Indy warehouse which not only to¬ 
day housed the Neptune Club, but housed its more 
important Auxiliary. 

Captain Caleb Fish, seated with feet propped up 
on the dismantled stove, was at peace with the world. 
He was alone, and was contemplating. His gaze 
roved about the room and held for a few moments 
on the wall decorations—huge, angry-looking whale 
teeth six or seven inches in length; then to rove on to 
a great steering oar that reached almost across the 
room. His thoughts were far away from Bayport 
and its doings of the day. 

He glanced up with a smile as Ozra Hemingway 
rushed into the room, laboring, Captain Caleb could 
see, under some unusual excitement. But was it un¬ 
usual for Ozra, Captain Caleb thought, as only his 
!eyes shifted toward the newcomer. Ozra was 
always excited about something or other. He called 
out cheerily. 

“Come ’longside, Ozra. I’ve had a half-hour’s 
peace and quiet ’board ship without a woman in 
sight, and I kin even stand you.” 

“I hain’t wantin’ to hear ye,” sniffed the former 
sea cook. “Got too much on my mind. Ye seen 
True Tisdale, or know whether he’s gone back to his 
lightship?” 

The tremor in the wizened man’s voice, mingled 
with a sort of exultation, was enough for Captain 
Caleb, who understood him. Ozra Hemingway un¬ 
doubtedly knew something he must tell or “bust his 


THE RIVER ROAD 


189 


anchor chains,” as the big captain mentally phrased 
it. He took his feet down from the stove and turned 
toward the sea cook. 

“What’s botherin’ ye now, Oz?” he demanded. 

But the New England Uriah Heep was enjoying 
himself too hugely. He had no mind to give his 
news too suddenly. 

“ ’Tain’t nuthin’ much,” he muttered. “Good 
riddance—no, ’tain’t nuthin’—” he cackled dis¬ 
agreeably. 

“Wal,” drawled Captain Caleb, “yer makin’ a 
heap of fuss ’bout it.” But as he made to lift his 
feet to the stove again to resume his meditation, 
Ozra decided he had waited long enough for his 
dramatic explosion. He spoke in a bored sort of 
manner, as of one who was accustomed to saying, “I 
told you so.” 

“Nuthin’ much,” he continued, “ ’cept that I jest 
seen Martha Tisdale and that Nate Sanderson goin’ 
away together on the noon train, and she wouldn’t 
look at me, and—” 

Ozra Hemingway had no cause to doubt the 
effectiveness of his bomb. In a bound which would 
have done credit to a younger and lighter man, Cap¬ 
tain Caleb was on his feet and had the small man 
by the slack of his shirt which he could grasp more 
;easily because of the missing suspender. 

“Oz Hemingway,” he boomed, his brows black, 
“By godfrey, ef ye’re lyin’ to me, I’ll choke ye—” 

Struggling, half choking as it was, Ozra Heming¬ 
way showed his fright as he sought to break away. 


190 


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“Let me be, Caleb Fish!” he squealed. “Let me 
be! I’m tellin’ th’ truth—I saw Nate, too, and he 
spoke ter me, and,” fumbling in his side pocket with 
one hand while he tried to hold oh the big captain with 
the other, he brought forth a crumpled note, “he give 
me this ter give True Tisdale. It’s in her writin’—” 

Dazedly Captain Caleb took the note from 
Hemingway’s hand; dazedly he recognized the 
writing. He sat down hard in his recently aban¬ 
doned chair as his clasp relaxed from the news- 
bearer’s garments. 

“She couldn’t,” he muttered. “She jest couldn’t! 
Oh, Lord!” 

“I told ye she warn’t no good—” began Oz when 
he got his breath along with his assurance, but the 
savage shout of Captain Caleb silenced him. 

“Keep yer mouth shut, damn ye!” he shouted. 
“Wonder where True is—” 

But as if in answer to his question, the door 
opened with a bang and the man in question came 
hurriedly in, trailed by Captain Hen Berry. His was 
a look of surprise as he saw the woebegone counte¬ 
nance of his old friend, and noted the triumphant 
gleam in the small eyes of the man who was official 
trouble-bearer to the town. But Captain Caleb did 
not speak. Trueman Tisdale looked about him 
anxiously. 

“Thought we’d find Martha here, likely,” he 
addressed Captain Caleb. “Can’t find her any place 
fclse in town. You seen her?” 

For just the moment big Captain Caleb hesitated. 


THE RIVER ROAD 


191 


Trueman Tisdale sensed something wrong. He 
came closer. 

“Can’t you answer me?” he demanded. “What’s 
happened? Martha—where is she?” 

With the bowed head of a judge rendering a death 
sentence, Captain Caleb, without rising, extended the 
letter he still clutched in his hand. His eyes were 
turned away from Tisdale who looked at it question- 
ingly for a moment, turning it over and over before 
he broke it and read. 

For another moment, the three men, two of them 
his friends of a lifetime, another who joyed in the 
misery he might bring and knew he had brought, 
watched him. They saw him stand taut. They saw 
the slow movement of his shoulders before they 
sagged brokenly. And then, still without turning 
that they might see his face, they watched him walk 
toward the windows, slowly, painfully as a man 
stricken, while the letter crumpled in his hand. 

As he stood there looking out of the window, 
staring into space, staring at the river and the 
familiar sights he did not see, it was Captain Caleb 
who made the first move. With the quietness he 
might have observed were he in a house of mourning, 
he stood up from his chair and tiptoed across to the 
man at the window. But he could not hear the 
whispered words of that man; he could not read his 
thoughts. 

Trueman Tisdale’s unseeing eyes were gazing 
down the river toward the familiar ocean, where he 
knew was the familiar lightship at anchor. He was 


192 


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remembering how happy he had been out there only 
the night before as he had made his new resolutions. 
Now—now— “And I’d come to tell her I’d stay 
ashore,” he was telling himself over and over. He 
flinched the slightest bit at the gentle touch of Cap¬ 
tain Caleb’s big hand on his shoulder. His eyes 
turned to see him. 

“Trueman—I—I’m sorry,” said Captain Caleb 
futilely. 

Over on his seat on the edge of a table Ozra 
Hemingway snorted, a blatant sound in the tenseness. 
One motion Captain Hen made of it. Ozra 
Hemingway was picked up by the nape of the neck 
and pointed toward the door. Captain Hen indi¬ 
cated the way. 

“You get t’ hell outer here!” he ordered shrilly. 

But Trueman, unhearing, turned from the 
window from which he had been staring. Like an 
old man from whom all life had gone, he sagged 
toward the same door. He tried to speak matter-of- 
factly. 

“Got to be getting back to the lightship,” he in¬ 
formed them, and unprotestingly they let him go, 
those two old men who stared into each other’s 
eyes and knew not what to do. 

Outside, Trueman Tisdale had gone past a dozen 
houses or more, with small notion of whether his 
course was taking him toward the wharf or not, 
when the sound of flying footsteps came to ears that 
little heeded. But he stopped when he felt the tight 
grip on his arm that Dorothy Merrill gave him, her 



THE RIVER ROAD 


193 


cheeks blazing with excitement, her hat awry, and a 
visible anger in her usually mild eyes. 

“She—she’s gone!” breathed Dorothy Merrill 
breathlessly, “and oh, I told her—I wanted to tell 
you—” 

Trueman Tisdale nodded dully. “Yes, I ’low so,” 
he said, reverting to the colloquialism of his child¬ 
hood. 

“But you’re going after her—right away?” 
breathed the girl who had been his wife’s friend, ex¬ 
citedly. “You must—you—” 

Slowly Trueman Tisdale shook his head. “I don’t 
’low she’ll want me to,” he said. “Besides, I don’t 
know where she’s gone—” 

But Dorothy Merrill shook with anger. 

“You! You, her husband! Who left her to bear 
the slandering tongues of this old town—and now 
you let her go—Well, I’ll tell you something, Mr. 
Trueman Tisdale, if you don’t know where she is, 
I do—see?” and she held up a note as crumpled as 
the one the lightship captain still held in his hand. 

“But there’s something more I’m not going to tell 
you, if you don’t know—until you can come to your 
senses! Oh, why—why”—and she flung out her 
arms to address the universe—“why are men so— 
so-so BLIND!” 

She flung off down the street at a pace that took 
her around the corner from the man’s sight, before 
he could bring his muddled mind to answer her. 
He stood stock still in the street, never heeding that 
he was in front of the Sands home where Mehitable, 


194 


THE RIVER ROAD 


putting out wet clothes on the little platform on the 
roof of her house—the platform that had once been 
the Widow’s Walk—was hanging over the railing 
and watching him with cat-like eyes. 

His hand opened and he spread out the crumpled 
note. That girl—that Dorothy Merrill—was not a 
bad sort to stand up for Martha so, but she did not 
know. She had not read what he had read. His 
eyes, dimmed a little, glanced over hastily written 
lines. 

“—so, if he doesn’t want me any more, or don’t need me, I’m 
going to the one other man in the world who does care, and—” 

If Dorothy Merrill had not known everything, 
neither did Martha Tisdale’s husband, as he stared 
out past the old-fashioned houses to the shimmer of 
water beyond and thought—thought of what she had 
written. He did not know what his young wife had 
meant when she had written that sentence. 


CHAPTER XV 


T RUEMAN TISDALE was a disappointment 
to his friends and critics. Enemies he could 
not be said to have unless were taken into 
account those disgruntled ones, who for personal, or 
other reasons, had disapproved of his marriage. 
Now all were united in disapproving the attitude as¬ 
sumed by the lightship captain. Two weeks had 
passed since the town had been set agog by the report 
that Martha Tisdale had gone away with Nate 
Sanderson, and Trueman Tisdale had done—just 
nothing. Perhaps he was quieter than usual, if that 
were possible. Only the men of his crew knew any¬ 
thing about the sleepless nights he spent roaming the 
decks of the lightship and staring out to sea, as 
though he could glean a solution of his problems 
from its black mysterious depths. 

Seldom did he come into Bayport, and then only 
for a look-in at the Neptune Club, where, his instinct 
told him, he still had true friends—though, manlike, 
and sailorlike, they would keep their opinions to 
themselves. They, too, like the feminine element of 
the small seaport town, had looked in vain for some 
kind of violent tragic action following Trueman Tis¬ 
dale’s wife’s disappearance. And they were at a loss 
to make him out when nothing happened. For once 

195 


196 


THE RIVER ROAD 


in their lives they were willing to agree with the 
consensus of opinion that Trueman should “keel¬ 
haul that damned skunk of a Sanderson.” But, un¬ 
like him, their views were sincere, and not brought 
about by disappointment at no dramatic happenings. 

It was Captain Lem, who, in the interval, between 
a checker game, of setting up his black men, ex¬ 
pressed the club’s opinion in a nutshell when he mut¬ 
tered, shaking his head: “Can’t figger True out. 
Them still, blue-eyed fellers ain’t gen’lly safe to 
crowd with too big a cargo of wrongs. They don’t 
sink. They blow up. But True, he’s luggin’ his all 
a-standin’, why don’t he ra’re, or fight, or bust?” 

Captain Hen, watching the game from his 
favorite vantage point with tip-tilted chair beside the 
stove, shook his head sadly as he clawed at his 
whiskers. 

“Kain’t say,” he remarked oracularly. “Mebbe 
he’s jest waitin’ the tide.” 

Within homes, where men expressed their opinion 
more freely than without, it was the general opinion 
that Trueman Tisdale was proving a pretty poor 
specimen to “let a swab like Nate Sanderson pirate 
his ship without liftin’ a finger,” but the men of the 
town took rather good precaution to whom this was 
said. 

It was on one of those rare visits of Trueman 
Tisdale’s to the Neptune Club that there came to one 
of them the flash of the true feelings of Martha’s 
husband. Direct from the wharf he had come and 
had dropped into his accustomed chair beside the 


THE RIVER ROAD 


197 


window to resume his occupation of sea-gazing. 
Also, as usual, he seemed to take little note of his 
companions, though the inclemency of the weather— 
summer was fast waning, and the scutter of clouds 
and occasional flurries of wind from the southeast 
were signs that the sweet calm of the summer days 
was about past—had urged most of the older ele¬ 
ment into the club. 

Captain Caleb shook the ash out of his pipe ancl 
sat gazing at the back of Trueman Tisdale, with all 
the fervor with which the young man was scanning 
the river that led down to the sea. Captain Caleb 
undoubtedly had something on his mind. But he was 
uncertain whether to keep it to himself or not. 
Twice he shifted in his seat before he found courage 
to do as he wished. He squared his shoulders as he 
rose, walked across the room and dropped into the 
chair beside Trueman Tisdale—a chair that of 
recent date had been more often vacant than not. 
His uneasiness did not leave him even during his 
perfunctory remarks about the weather. Then with 
a sudden quick movement he leaned forward and 
laid his hand sympathetically on Trueman's 
shoulder. His eyes moved surreptitiously about 
the room to be sure what he was going to say would 
not be overheard. 

“True,” he whispered hoarsely, but in a voice that 
only his companion could hear. “True, they’re 
talkin’—talkin’ like HELL! They’re talkin’ gall 
and blue vitr’ol. As a friend, True, don’t ye go 
gittin’ mad ef I say yer friends have been kinda 



198 


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lookin’ for ye to do somethin’. Ain’t ye goin’ ter make 
no move at all? I want ter be able to shut ’em 
up—dod rat ’em!” 

There was the ring of the sincerity of real friend¬ 
ship in the big captain’s voice, as he plead with the 
man he had known as boy and man, whose father 
had been friend before him. But he might have 
been talking to the chair in which Trueman sat for 
all the response he had for the moment. No muscle 
moved, no flicker of interest, as the man continued 
his seaward gaze. A whole two minutes before he 
spoke, and then when he did, it was in even, con¬ 
trolled tones, and with the level gaze of the man 
who knows his own business and intends to abide by 
his own counsel. 

“Captain Caleb,” he said deliberately, “you mean 
well—better than most I could name. But if you 
want to do me a real friendly turn, tell them to leave 
me alone—me and everything to do with me. I go 
my way, let them go theirs—and see that the ways 
don’t cross. 

“Say, Captain,” and his tone changed as suddenly 
as his mood. He seemed to have said all he wished 
and to have completely dismissed the matter of his 
own affairs, with a finality he wished his friend to 
understand. “What ship do you make that out to 
be off Eastern Point?” 

The little encounter, however, had not gone un¬ 
noticed by other members of the club, gathered in 
another corner. Ozra Hemingway bristled like a 
hen that had had a wetting. He felt it his bounden 


THE RIVER ROAD 


199 


duty to say something in the crisis, for hitherto he 
had been shut up at every opportunity to speak his 
mind to Martha’s husband. He had risen and taken 
a few eager steps toward the window when the grip 
on his coat sleeve which Captain Hen Berry gave 
halted him. 

“Oz,” he advised, in a meaning drawl, “I ain’t 
likin’ ye none too well. But I’m givin’ ye some good 
advice. You keep away from True Tisdale. He’d 
pick th’ meat outen ye, swaller hit in one little bite 
and chuck away th’ shell like ye was a periwinkle.” 

And discretion ever being the better part of valor 
with the small minder of other people’s business, 
Ozra, after another glance at the big captain at the 
window subsided, not, however, without a spiteful 
' comment. 

“Time fer it, I’d say,” he bit off. “Been down to 
low ebb a darned long time.” 

Cookie Lewis, club steward, stopped in the wield¬ 
ing of his broom long enough to grin owlishly at 
Ozra. 

“Whyn’t ye tell him so, then?” he asked. “I ’low 
he’d take anything from you. Most anybuddy 
would—except money. That’d be murder.” 

In general, though, while the men of the club de¬ 
plored Trueman’s actions, and were disappointed, 
he was more or less a subject for joyful meetings 
among the members of the club’s Auxiliary. The 
Tisdale scandal was the one topic of conversation, 
ever new, and the sheer joy of crucifying the mangled 
reputation of Martha Tisdale gained new zest from 





200 


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the opportunity to include Trueman, who had 
ignored all the eligible daughters of the Auxiliary in 
favor of a nobody, in the grilling. Tongues flew 
faster than needles on the days that they fore¬ 
gathered for the fall sewing, for since the existence 
of the club, few members had done this part of their 
work in the privacy of their homes. 

“It hain’t the part of a real man to sit down and 
do nothin’ about it, like Cap’n Tisdale does,” was 
the general opinion, voiced above a general clatter of 
agreement pitched in varied voices of “That’s what 
I say. Guess he was willing ’nough to let her skip.” 

It goes without saying that Mehitable Sands was 
in her glory. All her prophecies were being fulfilled, 
and now she had an added opportunity. 

“Always did think True Tisdale was terribly over¬ 
rated in this town,” she sniffed, and nods from other 
members answered her—all of them except Mrs. 
Caleb Fish, who sat quietly with her knitting, but 
with saddened countenance. Mehitable glanced at 
her maliciously—she could not neglect so good an 
opportunity for a fling—as she sneered: 

“Hain’t heard yer opinion of yer nice young 
friend’s latest innocent caper, ’Stasia.” 

“And ye won’t!” Mrs. Fish’s answer was in the 
nature of an explosion. This throwing to the lions 
was not much to the liking of faithful Mrs. Fish, 
champion of the weak. “I thank God that if I kain’t 
say any good of folks, I kin hold my tongue!” 

One would have thought that with the passage of 
time, even such a dereliction as Martha Tisdale’s 


THE RIVER ROAD 


201 


would have been softened. But instead, there was 
a constant adding of fuel to the flames by the sight 
of her husband, going stolidly on his way, as though 
nothing out of the usual had happened. 

“And her gallivantin’ all ’round ’th country with 
another man,” eagerly prodded the gossips. 

None of them knew, though, none of them could 
by any chance know—such was the nature of True¬ 
man Tisdale—of the night after night he walked his 
deck, hands clenched, face strained and drawn, as he 
fought down the wild primal blood lust within him. 
If Martha wanted to go—then he must not be the 
one to keep her. Again and again he argued it with 
himself, but never could be bring himself to the 
point that he could say he had not loved Martha— 
did not love her yet. It had been all his fault—she 
was so young—he had left her unprotected—had not 
told her of the things in his heart. Oh, if there was 
only a chance—a chance— 

And when, at length Trueman Tisdale had won 
his fight, and the instinct to kill had been laid, his 
towns-folk knew nothing of that, either, for out¬ 
wardly there was no change in Trueman Tisdale, the 
silent. 

The sun, setting behind the purple of gathering 
storm clouds that presaged bad weather made a path 
from the lightship straight across the sparkling 
waters—not as calm as they had been in the earlier 
summer weather straight out through the ocean 
pathway of the Boston steam packets. Trueman 
Tisdale, smouldering pipe held forgotten in one 


202 


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hand, leaned over the rail and looked out over that 
pathway. He was thinking of the steamers’ routes 
and of the big places to which they led. In one of 
those big cities, probably, was Martha, somewhere, 
and with her—his big frame shook w T ith a shiver as 
of a man ill as he tried to put from him the thought. 
But it persisted, the while he gazed out from the 
lightship across the dancing waters he did not see. 

From below decks came the plaintive wail of 
Cookie and the rattle of pots in the galley as accom¬ 
paniment to one of his everlasting chanteys: 


“Let go and haul! 

Jib sheet and dog rope, 
Boom tackle fall, 

Stand by your dog rope, 
Let go and haul—” 


But as far as the captain of the lightship was con¬ 
cerned all might have been as silent as the shore at 
night with only the little lapping waves against the 
pebbles to break the quiet. He did not hear. It had 
been a long time now that he had been falling into 
those reveries—long for him, but counted in days 
and weeks, but the length of the fortnight during 
which Martha Tisdale had been gone—gone, as he 
and all of Bayport believed—with Nate Sanderson. 
He did not even hear the familiar chugging of Cap¬ 
tain Hen Berry’s motor boat until it was alongside, 
and he was awakened from his thoughts by the long 
hail of the jovial old seaman demanding a rope be 
thrown overside. 


THE RIVER ROAD 


203 


“Brung ye a couple o’ visitors,” shouted the old 
man. “Drop yer ladder.” 

Though he was far from wanting a visitor or any 
one else to break into his solitary communion, True¬ 
man Tisdale forced a smile of welcome to his face 
as the ladder was dropped and he helped Dorothy 
Merrill over the rail and saw Jack Billings leap 
lightly after her. Captain Hen shook his head. 

“No, I’ll be stayin’ here,” he said in answer to 
Trueman’s invitation. “Don’t know how long I’d 
stay did I come ’board, and night’s cornin’ along, 
and the wind’s shiftin’. Looks like we’d have 
weather, eh, True?” he asked, cocking his head to¬ 
ward the sky over which the fleecy clouds were 
already scurrying like sheep before a storm. 

Dorothy Merrill held out her hand timidly. She 
had never quite got over her first awe of the silent 
husband of the girl she had chosen to call friend, 
though she had had no fear of speaking her mind to 
him when the occasion arose. 

“I hope you don’t mind this unexpected visit, Cap¬ 
tain,” she said. “But we’re going away to-morrow, 
and I’ve wanted all summer to see this lightship—” 

True smiled politely. 

“Delighted, Miss Merrill,” he said, “but I’m 
afraid there’s little to see. We’re just a few quiet 
chaps out here, with nothing to do unless a storm 
comes up, except to see that the lights are kept burn¬ 
ing and the bell rings if necessary.” 

He indicated the huge lightship bell which was 



204 


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cached rigidly in its hooded cover on the forward 
deck. 

“But if this weather does what it’s threatening to 
do,” he went on, his eyes taking in the light froth of 
white scud that was gently topping the waves, 
“that bell’ll have business to do before many 
hours.” 

Patiently and without showing how little he 
relished his job, the lightship captain showed his 
visitors about his ship; listened to the usual com¬ 
ments. They stopped at the seaward rail at which 
he had been standing on their arrival. The fara¬ 
way gaze that Dorothy gave toward the blue ocean 
was as detached as Trueman’s own. She pointed 
with a slim white finger toward some sea birds cir¬ 
cling toward the coast, as is the way with such when 
the wind is in the offing. 

“Those are gulls, aren’t they?” she asked. “Such 
pretty white things,” was the musing addition. 

“Yes,” Trueman nodded, thinking. “And help¬ 
less, too. Dependent things, gulls are. Have you 
ever heard, Miss Merrill,” he asked suddenly, turn¬ 
ing to face his guest, “that old sailormen believe 
that the souls of the oldest and most helpless sailor- 
men who die go into gulls—and that is why they 
always hover near shore, in the sheltered coves and 
harbors, and when there is going to be a storm—” 

“No, really?” Dorothy was interested. 

“And I’ve heard or read somewhere,” Trueman 
went on, “that it is the same thing with moths. The 
souls of women go into moths—helpless, fluttering 


THE RIVER ROAD 


205 


things—women are like that—” He finished slowly 
with a bitterness he could not disguise. 

Dorothy Merrill bristled unaccountably. 

“And men?” she asked suddenly. “I suppose 
their souls go into—into —mules or something like 
that. Oh, there’s no use of hiding it any further, 
Captain Tisdale. I came out here for one reason, 
and one alone. I thought maybe you might resent 
my interfering with your affairs, but—” and she 
waved a hand imperiously at Trueman as he started 
to speak, “I don’t care if you do. There’s some¬ 
thing I must say to you—must tell you before I go 
back to New York—and whether you like it or not, 
and whether you intend still to belong to the mule 
class is something I cannot help—but I will tell you 
this—” and she stressed each word as she hurried 
on breathlessly, not caring what her host might think 
or say—“if you don’t intend to do anything about 
that poor child why—I—I will—” She stopped out 
of breath as she fumbled in the bag she carried. 
She brought out a letter and half thrust it into True¬ 
man Tisdale’s face. 

“Here, Captain Tisdale,” she announced angrily, 
and adding sarcastically, “pure, unmovable Captain 
Tisdale—read that and see what you think of your¬ 
self!” 

For just a second of time the man stood, with the 
letter the girl had crushed into his hand, gazing at 
her. He seemed not to understand. What was 
this thing Dorothy Merrill could tell him? All the 
reserve of the Tisdale blood rose up to forbid the 



206 


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interference of a stranger, but as he held the letter, 
the warm tingle that crept along his arm told him 
that it was from Martha—that its meaning could 
hold only good for him. With bowed head he stood 
gazing at it, half incredulously. 

When he looked up the girl was gone. He heard 
the silver tinkle of her inconsequent laughter, as 
though nothing had happened, as she went over the 
rail and down the rope ladder to Captain Hen’s 
extended hands. The small boat was chugging its 
way back across the scud of the coming storm when 
Trueman Tisdale opened the letter he held and read. 
His heart seemed fairly to stop as he looked at the 
well-remembered chirography—written thoughts he 
had not had himself. 


“Dear Dorothy 

Probably by this time you are thinking the same thing of me 
that all Bayport is thinking—things that I never imagined one 
person could think about another. I only found out after it was 
too late, when that man—but I can barely bring myself to speak 
of him—told me what it meant, what everyone would think, was 
thinking—what even True was thinking—but what can that matter, 
for he did not, does not care. But, really, I came to find my father. 
He’s the one person in the world who needs me, and wants 
me . . 


Trueman Tisdale’s eyes lifted from the sheet with 
a start as there photographed itself on his mind the 
same words in another letter. What could it mean? 
He permitted himself the ghost of a smile at the in¬ 
coherency of the missive, the closely written missive, 
on its three sheets of paper, as though the writing 


THE RIVER ROAD 


207 


medium had been a matter of consequence. His 
heart warmed as he read those words, but, only 
to be chilled as though with the ice of a Labrador 
sea, as he went on: 

“You have always been my friend, Dorothy, and though every¬ 
body else in Bayport thinks I am bad, I just cannot seem to bear 
that you should, too. He told me he would help me find my father. 
Then, when we reached Boston that night—Oh, how can men be 
so terrible. . . . When I reached my room, I slammed the door 
in his face, and I could hear him fuming. . . . He said some awful 
things, and laughed—laughed! He told me then that everybody 

believed that I had come away with him-and that there was 

no escape. . . 


Trueman Tisdale’s eyes snapped fire, while the 
hot blood of resentment coursed through his veins— 
almost to the killing point. It was well for Nate 
Sanderson that he was aboard his packet that night, 
far out to sea. 

The little more—how Martha had made stint to 
keep living while she used the few hours she had for 
searching for her father on the Boston waterfront— 
by serving as waitress in a restaurant, were passed 
over hurriedly by the harassed husband. 

He had found what he wanted to know. He 
knew now what he wanted. Action! / 

His wife! He had always wanted her—until he 
had thought she did not want him. It was so piti¬ 
ful, too. The letter she had written to Dorothy 
Merrill drifted to the deck as his hand searched his 
pockets for another. It was a worn letter, one show¬ 
ing evidence of having been read many times. He 




208 


THE RIVER ROAD 


did not open it, as he held it in his hand, but his 
head shook mournfully. 

“And I could have told her, if I had known,” he 
whispered to the rising sea and the haze-covered sun 
as it dipped its good-night behind purple clouds. 
He apostrophized the letter: 

“It wasn’t such a wonderful death, you died, was 
it, Pete Rogers—but you are dead and gone, I am 
sure. No such brawl as this tells me about could 
have happened aboard any ship that ever sailed, and 
leave one like you, Pete Rogers, to tell the tale. Yes, 
Martha, your father has passed on. I could have 
told you, but. . . .” 

The midnight train that night carried Trueman 
Tisdale as a passenger to Boston. 


CHAPTER XVI 


I N a 'downpour that presaged a late August gale— 
a storm most dreaded by the New England 
sailormen, Trueman Tisdale alighted at the 
small railroad station in Bayport, and with him was 
his wife, Martha. Trueman moved in the direction 
of the only horse-driven vehicle that had braved the 
elements and the late hour. Martha’s timid light 
touch on his arm changed his plan. 

“No, True, please,” she whispered, “I—I don’t 
want them to know—just yet; can’t we walk?” 

And so, in the torrential rain that soaked the high¬ 
ways, made drab and uninviting the white houses 
that flanked the cobble-paved streets, and drenched 
them both to the skin, Trueman Tisdale and his 
weary wife made their way along the meagerly 
lighted River Road to the Tisdale home. 

With ears keen, Martha Tisdale was alive to 
everything. She seemed to hear in the rain that 
drip-dripped from the eaves of the houses the 
words of contumely that she knew would be her por¬ 
tion when it was known she was back. She longed 
for a word from Trueman, but he was silent. 
There had been none, save for those few in that 
small room of hers in Boston. 

As she held to his arms timorously, he guided her 

209 






210 


THE RIVER ROAD 


through the stormy night, both buffeted by the gale 
that momentarily grew greater, she was thinking of 
those few moments in the city when he had come to 
her—of the fright that had choked in her throat as 
he had opened the door and stood there—looking, 
looking, and had said only: “Come, we are going 
home.” 

She remembered how she had tried to tell him— 
how she had told him nothing—when he had said, in 
that way to which she had become so accustomed: 
“Martha, you’re my wife! You’re to come home!” 
It might have meant so much. She believed it meant 
so little, as she would have it mean. She thought she 
knew Trueman Tisdale—the Trueman she had come 
to think believed only in a vow for a vow’s sake. 

The misery in her heart as she plodded along, un¬ 
knowingly taking the easiest places while Trueman 
tramped through the pools of water and mud she 
did not see that she might be saved the worst through 
the shrieking blasts, made these things of small 
moment. She did not even know them. She only 
knew that she was back home—that in Bayport dwelt 
Mehitable Sands, and—so many others, and Ma 
Tisdale— 

Truman opened the picket gate that sloshed in a 
pool of water. For the first time since she had left 
the train, grateful that it was night and that she 
would not have to face her neighbors too soon, 
Martha drew back with a shudder. There was a 
light in the kitchen window—a light that shone out, 
bringing within its radius the garden and sunflowers 



THE RIVER ROAD 


211 


dripping in the drenching rain. In a flash it all came 
upon her—what it meant coming home. 

It had seemed so natural when Trueman had so 
ordered—there had been the hope that some time 
she could thoroughly explain to him, though he had 
given her no chance. How could she know that he 
already knew—that it was the hurt for her in his 
own heart that would not let her rehearse her own 
misery? 

The New England in Trueman Tisdale was 
having its fling to the last. That light in the window 
and the realization of who was sitting behind it 
brought it all back to Martha Tisdale with a greater 
suddenness than the lightning flash that illumined the 
water until she could distinguish the lightship in the 
distance—the lightship from which she knew came 
the regular clang-clang of the bell with its warning to 
sailors. Ma Tisdale was behind that kitchen light. 
And scorn—and more indignities. She drew back 
from Trueman’s side. 

“Oh, I can’t! I can’t!” she cried. 

A new burst of rain drenched them as she spoke. 

“Come,” said Trueman, again taking her by the 
arm, and weakly, as though she had no mind or will 
of her own, she let him lead her up the shell-bordered 
walk, to throw open the kitchen door, and inside. 

Ma Tisdale, seated in a rocking chair by the 
kitchen stove, dropped her glasses to the floor as she 
arose excitedly to her feet at the sight that con¬ 
fronted her—Martha Tisdale, clothing soaked, hat 
bedraggled, with one red rose leaking its red pro- 




THE RIVER ROAD 


test across a pale cheek. But it was her step-son she 
confronted. 

“True Tisdale!” she shrieked. “Are ye crazy? 
Bringing back that—that—” words failed her as she 
choked, “inter a decent—” 

It was the ominous eyes of Trueman Tisdale—no 
words were needed—that stopped her. Those eyes 
were stony—hard as the mechanical voice in which 
he spoke. 

“You leave her alone—now, and always!” His 
voice was low and tense. 

Just for a moment Ma Tisdale considered. She 
picked up the fallen glasses. 

“Or go!” added Trueman, meaningly, while 
Martha did her best to shrink to nothingness. 

With an agility one would not have supposed at 
her age, Ma Tisdale flung herself toward the hook 
on which hung her own draggled raincoat. 

“All right!” she flung at him. “I will! The 
Lord’ll be with me, but you—with yer abandoned 
creature—” 

The door was opened and Ma Tisdale had gone 
into the storm-swept night, before Martha had got 
her breath. She started toward the closed door. 

“But she’s so old—” she began. 

“Not too old to take care of herself—or to be— 
herself—” said Trueman, with a determined curl to 
his lip. His tone changed to masterfulness. “You’re 
soaked,” he said. “Go ’tend to yourself. You take 
our room. I’ll take the spare.” 


THE RIVER ROAD 


213 


And as his wife looked her heart out after him, 
Trueman Tisdale turned on his heel and left the 
warm kitchen, on the windows of which the an¬ 
nouncements of a record-breaking line gale were 
beating. 





CHAPTER XVII 


B Y morning, the equinoctial storm that had been 
gathering for the past two or three days, pre¬ 
ceded by the downpour of the night before, 
had increased in its intensity. Bayport’s streets and 
lanes ran rivers. Up from the ocean came the wind 
that swooped in long gusts from the darkened sky, 
past the white-capped waters and the breakers that 
foamed and sizzled over the rocks and sandy beaches 
of the shore. It swept through the town with its 
gale-like gusts trying to lose itself in the hills back 
of the town. 

Captain Hen, struggling with his so’wester, passed 
the old darky, Shiner, out in the early morning, mak¬ 
ing valiant efforts to keep his fish cart right side up. 
From the corner of his mouth, Captain Hen spoke: 

“Ye’ll be worrin’ ’bout more than fish ’fore night, 
I’m tellin’ ye, Shiner—ef this here liner keeps on, 
ye’ll be thinkin’ of gluein’ yer hair on.” 

“I sure is doin’ a tol’ble heap of thinkin’ as ’tis— 
an’ it hain’t ’bout fish, right now, Cap’n Hen,” an¬ 
swered the old peddler, sagely wagging his woolly 
head. “I hears a heap a-peddlin’ fish, and dis 
mornin’ hit seems lak de whole town is jest ’bout 
ready to ’splode—an’ all ’count dat pritty li’l Mis’ 
Martha dun come back—” 


214 


THE RIVER ROAD 


215 


Captain Hen stopped still in his tracks. 

“What ye mean?” he asked quickly, but Shiner 
just nodded once more, as he shifted his cart a little 
to further protect it from a blast of rain and wind 
that swept down the street. He coughed to clear 
the mist from his throat—the thick stifling clammy 
mist that was making its way in from seaward where 
it was banked thick over the rocks, and made murky 
clouds as it drifted past men and houses, a most 
tangible thing. 

“Ain’t ye heered?” he asked surprisedly. “Cap’n 
True he went up to Boston come yistiddy, an’ last 
night they done come back. ’Pears like Ma Tisdale 
she ’lowed she ain’t gwine t’ stay in the same house 
wid Mis’ Martha, an’ she done tuk hit lickety-split 
ovah to Mis’ Sands right in the middle ob de rain, 
and I ’low they hain’t been much sleepin’ in the 
Sands house while Ma Tisdale’s got so much to say.” 

Shiner stopped for a chuckle, but it was too 
serious a matter to Captain Hen to allow of even a 
smile. Shiner shoved his battered old hat down a 
little further on his fringe of whitened hair as he 
went on. 

“Was ’round to Mis’ Mehit’bel’s a’ready dis 
mawnin’,” he confided. “I axes her lak I alius does, 
‘How’s yo’ soul?’ and she jest ‘humped’ me. Den I 
says, ’Ain’t yo jes’ sorry, ma’am, foh dat pritty li’l 
Mis’ Tisdale what’s come back? Seems lak mos’ 
ev’buddy got a stone to frow at her.’ ” 

Pausing for breath, Shiner continued. 

“She jes’ storms back at me, wussern’ this gale we 





216 


THE RIVER ROAD 


is a-facin’. ‘Yo git along wid yo’ old fish, yo black 
nigger,’ ’lows she. 

“ ‘Ma’am, ma’am,’ says I, ‘don’ yo go scoffin’ wid 
folks dat dutinizes wid fishes. Yo’ done forgot dem 
fisherman ob Galilee. Didn’t de Lawd hisself show 
’em how to make de high hook cotch? Yas, 
indeedy, ma’am, souls an’ fishes am mighty nigh kin. 
Yo got to fish foh ’em both mighty keerful.’ ” 

“ ‘Yo’ shut up an’ get outer here,’ says she, ‘I don’ 
take no advice from a dirty old darky.’ ” 

Again he chuckled as he thought of his reply, 
t “I ’low I got even, Cap’n,” he nodded, “‘foh!’ 
says I, ‘dey’s sumpin else in de good Book, Miss 
Mehit’, dat yo done forget. It says: “Better to dwell 
in the eye of a needle dan wiv a cantankerous 
woman!’”” 

The sudden gust of rain-sodden wind that re¬ 
moved Shiner’s hat sent him hobbling into the 
gutter after it. He did not notice that Captain Hen 
had hurried off in the face of the gale until he rose to 
see the well-known so’wester flapping down the 
street. He shoved his own rain-soaked headgear 
onto his head and, pushing his fish cart as well as he 
could, shook his old head as he went off muttering: 
“De droppin’s on a rainy day an’ a cantankerous 
woman am de same, saith de proverb.” 

So Martha Tisdale was back. That was the 
thought that was lending wings to Captain Hen’s 
short fat legs. He knew what it meant—what it 
would mean to her. He groaned inwardly as he con¬ 
sidered the choice morsel, that had just been handed 


THE RIVER ROAD 


217 


him by the old negro, would be in the town that day. 
And his tender old heart ached for the girl who had 
come back to face it. He had no way of knowing, 
as did Martha’s husband, that she had been blame¬ 
less in the escapade that had become a town sensa¬ 
tion, but the charity in his heart made him insist that 
whatever she had done, she had been driven to it 
only by the evil tide of gossip of the Bayporters he 
knew. 

The least he could do would be to go out to the 
Tisdale home and tell Martha that he was glad she 
was back. Poor child! She would need a friendly 
voice. 

And Captain Caleb, too, if he could find him. Not 
likely he would be at the club this early in the morn¬ 
ing, but Captain Caleb always loved storms, and he 
loved to feel that a deck was under his feet on such 
a day as this. There was a chance he might be at the 
club. 

Captain Hen headed toward the old West Indy 
warehouse, facing the gale as he had done a good 
many hundred times before with no more than 
elation that his human strength could battle against 
the elements. 

It was with a shock of surprise that he opened 
the door of the club to face Ma Tisdale. What on 
earth could she be doing here so early on such a 
stormy morning? But she set him at rest. 

“Humph!” she sniffed. “Ye men can’t keep 
away from this here club no matter what. Seems 
like the wimmin might have a chance onc’t in a while 





218 


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when they have important business to confer over 
with. Thought by callin’ a meetin’ early we’d be 
shet of a lot of ye.” 

“Why, what’s the matter, Ma?” Captain Hen 
looked blank. 

The sniff of Ma’s nose almost upset her spectacles. 

“Matter ’nough,” she observed. “What with 
True Tisdale bringin’ that—” Her fury overcame 
her. 

“She’s his wife,” Captain Hen loyally observed. 
“Guess it’s a man’s duty to look after his wife no 
matter what happens—” 

“Not when she took off, like she did with Nate 
Sanderson,” scowled Ma. “There’s some things 
that nuthin’ excuses.” She warmed to her subject as 
she spoke in a martyred tone. “From the day he 
married her I’ve been expectin’ somethin’. I’ve 
always had the feelin’ it was just a matter of time, 
and now—” She sighed with hypocritical resigna¬ 
tion, as she spread her hands. 

Captain Hen looked off through the rain-spattered 
windows. Well he knew how little use argument 
would be with a woman of Ma Tisdale’s stern and 
rockbound nature, but he could not refrain from a 
single retort. 

“She sort o’ reminds me of a ship I sailed in,” he 
said gently. “In calm weather she behaved like the 
lady she were, but in a squall she’d act up sort o’ 
frightened, as if she warn’t jest sure of her bearin’s. 
Best man in the fleet at her helm, but he didn’t seem 
to do no good. One day we found somebuddy’d 


THE RIVER ROAD 


219 


fouled her rudder with a rope. ’T warn’t her fault, 
after all, ye see. Life’s pretty much like the sea, and 
ships can be mighty human.” 

Ma Tisdale flounced toward the stair door that 
opened into the Auxiliary rooms. 

“I’ve more confidence in ships than in most 
people,” she announced over her retreating shoulder. 

Captain Hen nodded. “Right fer onc’t,” he 
agreed. “So’ve I. We’re generally more careful of 
how a ship’s keel is laid than we are how humans 
are brung up.” 

It was Captain Caleb Fish that put an end to what 
might have been a long soliloquy on the little man’s 
part. He did not greet his friend ceremoniously, 
though there passed between them a look of well 
understood sympathy. 

“Talkin’ to wimmin,” observed Captain Caleb 
finally, “is a mighty precarious business; sort o’ like 
catchin’ lobsters. You got ter git ’em behind the 
ears when they hain’t lookin’.” Then his tone 
changed to a more serious one as his glance went to 
the door through which Ma Tisdale had flounced. 
“Looks as though more trouble’s brewin’, eh, 
Hen?” he asked. 

For a moment the two men looked into each 
other’s eyes. What each saw satisfied him. They 
understood each other in the way of old sailormen 
without words of explanation. Captain Hen spoke 
slowly: “Mebby nuthin’ to worry ’bout. Trouble 
takes some time to develop. That’s where elements 
is a heap kinder than some humans; they give warnin’ 



220 


THE RIVER ROAD 


mostly when they’re goin’ to bust out. Say, Cap’n 
Caleb, don’t you ’low we might jest as well be gittin’ 
on down the River Road?” 

It was a girl who was a wan ghost of her usual 
pink-cheeked self, towards whose home the old sea¬ 
men trudged down the River Road. A girl whose 
ring-darkened eyes told of a vigil while the rain beat 
down on her husband’s roof, and she listened to the 
breaking of the roaring surf down below the cottage 
to which he had brought her as a bride, and now once 
more had brought her as an erring wife. That she 
was not erring was of little consequence. She be¬ 
lieved that Trueman thought so; his very silence 
must mean that. 

It was a commentary on how little she knew her 
husband when she could not even guess that that 
very silence was his idea of easing things for her. 
She must know, argued his staunch heart, that he be¬ 
lieved in her—trusted her. To question would be to 
prove a doubt. 

Eagerly she had watched for a sign from him that 
he loved her, but it had not been forthcoming. In 
as stolid silence as they had made the trip from 
Boston, with all the matter-of-factness of every-day 
occurrence, Trueman had gone about eating the 
breakfast she had prepared, and started on the 
morning chores—bringing in wood, seeing to the 
feeding of the chickens—doing all of the things that 
would otherwise have taken the girl out into the 
mud and rain. But not once had he spoken a word 
that would have been as balm to her sore heart. 


THE RIVER ROAD 


221 

Oh, she had done wrong to come back! She was 
sure of it! Why had she been so weak—so easily led 
by her heart when she had seen her big husband 
standing there in the door of that rooming house 
asking her to come back. He had seemed such a 
haven of strength, but now— If he didn’t love 
her—had only done what he had through a sense of 
duty— Oh, what was the use of it? 

She had wandered into the dimly lit sitting room 
as she half-heartedly tried to go about her duties as 
though taken up from the day before. The very 
fact that the strident tones of Ma Tisdale’s voice 
were missing, though, was an ever conscious proof 
that things were different. Her eyes wandered to the 
old piano. She remembered Dorothy Merrill sitting 
there in the twilight singing. What was that 
Dorothy had sung? 


“I shall love thee, dear, forever, 
Though the years shall pass s*way—” 


Oh, if he only did! 



CHAPTER XVIII 


T HE sound of hearty voices through the rain, 
voices and crunching footsteps coming up the 
path from the River Road toward the kitchen 
door, made Martha Tisdale shrink for a moment. 
Then she recognized the voices and went to open 
the door herself. Captain Hen and Captain Caleb 
stood there. 

Captain Hen’s hand went out. “Wal, wal,” 
cheered Captain Hen. “Glad to see ye back—both 
of ye!” turning toward Trueman who moved 
toward them with a load of kindlings in his arms. 
Impulsively Martha grasped both of the small fat 
captain’s hands as she drew him into the cheery 
kitchen with its clean tidies on the backs of chairs, a 
custom in vogue in Bayport since they were kitchens 
more often than “sittin’ rooms” that were the scene 
of most hospitality. There was a sigh of relief, too, 
as her warm hands pressed the old man’s. 

Captain Caleb’s big voice boomed out. 

“An’ me, too, Martha!” It was almost with a 
sob instead of a murmured thanks that she answered 
both men. How wonderful they were—they who 
had no idea of the true facts of the case, but who 
chose to be loyal to her for loyalty’s sake. 

Inside, Trueman Tisdale waved his guests to 
seats. He turned to his wife. 


222 


THE RIVER ROAD 


223 


“I think a little nip of that old Medford wouldn’t 
do these wet old fellows a bit of harm, Martha,” 
he announced. 

As she disappeared, Trueman Tisdale came for¬ 
ward a step. His attitude was a bit more truculent 
than either of them were accustomed to. 

“Well,” he said speculatively, as he looked them 
over. “I suppose you’re wondering where Sander¬ 
son is?” Their silence was sufficient. 

Trueman Tisdale turned to look out of the 
window at the trees that bent under the gusts that 
swept in from the open sea in front of his house. 
“I don’t know,” he said simply. But as he noted the 
amazed expression on the kindly faces, he opened 
up a bit—for him. 

“Cap’n Hen,” he said slowly, and with the man¬ 
ner of a man who does not intend to be questioned, 
“and Cap’n Caleb, you’re my friends. Your com¬ 
ing here to-day has proved that, if you had not a 
thousand times before. There are a lot of things I 
can’t tell you—now—” He did not intimate that his 
reason for not talking more freely to his wife, open¬ 
ing his heart to her—the fact that he wanted to be 
trusted without question as he trusted others. 
“I’ll tell you this. She was not with him—had not 
been since the night she got to Boston—” 

Captain Caleb’s big fist clenched. 

“By godfrey! Ye mean th’ dirty dog left her?” 
he began, but Trueman’s smile was noncommittal. 

“Had no chance to, far as I know—she had other 
reasons for going to Boston—” 



224 


THE RIVER ROAD 


Captain Hen lumbered from his seat and came 
to face the lightship captain he had known as man 
and boy. He laid his hand on Trueman’s shoulder. 

“True,” he said, “I believe ye—and her. But it’s 
goin’ ter be gosh-a-mighty hard ter make folks in 
this here town believe it.” 

Trueman Tisdale had not framed an answer when 
the kitchen door burst open unceremoniously, and 
Ozra Hemingway, rain-bespattered and breathing 
hard from the exertion of his run down the River 
Road, brought up short at the sight of the two men 
who were with the man he had come to see, and 
whose secrets he was determined to worm out, if 
possible. 

“Oh, thar ye be, True, sure ’nough,” he whined. 
“Back again, I see. Humph!” His sharp eyes sought 
out the farthest corners; his ferret ears were 
sharpened for sounds he did not hear. He beamed 
hypocritically. 

“Knew ye wouldn’t be fool ’nough ter bring her— 
like they was sayin’—” 

Trueman Tisdale’s voice rang out like the warn¬ 
ing bell of his own lightship, as he swung on the 
small sea cook. 

“Well, I brought her!” His temper seethed at 
the aghast expression that was all too noticeable in 
Ozra’s eyes, but he went on: “This is my home. She’s 
my wife— Yes, what about it?” 

For once Ozra Hemingway’s temerity was put to 
test. He shrunk back against the kitchen door as 
the master of the house strode toward him. 


THE RIVER ROAD 


225 


“And I’m a fool, am I?” Trueman was menac¬ 
ing. 

“I wasn’t meanin’ nuthin’, True,” Ozra whined. 
“I was jest thinkin’ what they’re sayin’ and—” 

True’s voice was the snap of a whip. “I don’t 
care what they’re saying; I don’t care what they’re 
thinking! I’m master of my ship and when I need 
their help, I’ll let them know!” 

It was hard to entirely subdue Ozra Hemingway, 
once he had a choice topic. But his discretion always 
stood him in stead. He did not speak until he had 
opened the kitchen door back of him. 

“Ye’ll be sorry,” he warned, in his hateful whine. 

“Then I’ll be sorry,” came back Trueman’s re¬ 
tort as he turned on his heel as though to get from his 
sight the vision of the wizened gossip. 

Ozra Hemingway edged his way half through 
the open doorway, through which whipped rain and 
the noise of the storm came louder than in the 
closed room. He gave a parting fling. 

“She’s a—” he began, but his words were cut 
short by the onslaught of the lightship captain who 
was upon him. Only the restraining hands of Cap¬ 
tain Hen and Captain Caleb saved the small man 
who for once in his life had gone too far. It was 
the tones of ruddy Captain Hen’s voice that steadied 
the husband of the woman who had been reviled. 

“Steady on th’ hal’yards, True! Steady! Ye 
don’t want to snag no sea shark!” 

But Trueman Tisdale jerked loose one hand to 


226 


THE RIVER ROAD 


shake menacingly at the figure of Ozra half-sheltered 
in the open doorway. 

“Get out of here before I kill you!” he roared. 
“Get out and stay out.” 

So intent was he on his condemnation that he did 
not see Martha as she came from down cellar, the 
bottle held in her hand. But Ozra Hemingway did 
not fail to see her, nor did she fail to see the evil 
light that crossed his wizened face at the sight of 
her. She sat down limply in the nearest chair as the 
door slammed behind Ozra Hemingway to the 
accompaniment of a gust of wind that rocked the 
Tisdale home. She shook with fear and it was not 
from the crash of the storm. 

“Trueman,” she wailed. “Oh, what is it? What 
has happened? Was—was it—about me?” 

But her husband’s answer was as much to his 
guests as to his wife. 

“Just another human I wanted to kill. Never 
used to think that way. Never thought I could.” 

“Trueman! Trueman!” Martha’s wail lifted 
above the roar of the tempest. “You mustn’t say 
things like that—you mustn’t think them—you 
mustn’t. Oh, I shouldn’t have come back here! I 
told you it was wrong!” 

“I brought you back.” Her husband’s lips closed 
with a finality. As he stood in front of her cowering 
in her chair, they neither of them saw the movement 
of Captain Hen and Captain Caleb toward the 
kitchen door. 


THE RIVER ROAD 


227 


Captain Hen whispered: “Full crew’s ’nough for 
any ship. No use crowdin’. We’ll go ashore?” 

Captain Caleb nodded, as they tiptoed toward the 
door and closed it softly behind them. 

One arm over her eyes, Martha Tisdale sobbed 
out her heart. “Oh, I can see it all so clearly. Each 
day is going to be harder; every morning is going to 
mean waking up to—” 

With an effort she controlled herself, but it was 
mechanically, as though a sleepwalker were speaking 
that she went on. “First it was Ma—then—No,” 
and her head shook slowly “they’ll never understand 
*—they’ll believe the worst—they—they’ll never for¬ 
give me—never. 

“Martha.” Trueman’s tone held a hint of tender¬ 
ness under the forcefulness of his Spartan touch. 
“You’ll have to face it.” 

Something in that tone made her look up eagerly. 
Made her try for another time. 

“Oh, I could, I could,” she plead, “with you, 
True—I could face anything. But to be alone— 
And now—oh, it seems that you are so much farther 
from me than ever before—” 

There was a dull look of fright in her eyes and 
voice as she plead, as though she believed it hopeless, 
but there was fear of the prospect before her. 
Without turning toward her as he stood at the 
kitchen window watching the gale make windrows in 
his loved garden, he spoke simply. 

“You must try, Martha—try, for both of our 
sakes. I—I was going to stay ashore, but I’ve been 




228 


THE RIVER ROAD 


thinking about it, and I know it will be better to go 
on as before. Then you’ll have your chance to show 
these people that they’re wrong. When—” 

He did not hear the half-whispered interruption 
of his wife as she sat rocking herself gently backward 
and forward, her hand stroking the fur of the old 
gray cat that had huddled against her knees with its 
friendly purring greeting. 

“I understand—I understand, True,” she kept re¬ 
peating monotonously. “You’ve done all you could 
do—much more than most men would do—” 

“So you must make them see for both our sakes,” 
went on her husband, with no hint of the gentleness 
she had noted before. Now it was the Puritanical 
Tisdale speaking, the scion of all the Tisdales to 
whom duty was a word paramount. “When I took 
you for my wife it was for better or for worse. 
That’s what I promised. I’m not forgetting.” 

The half-smothered cry that came from Martha 
Tisdale might have been the result of a physical 
blow. Half-consciously he seemed to note it. “I’m 
not meaning to be unkind,” he amended. “I went 
to Boston after you because it’s a man’s duty to save 
his wife. I’d have done that even if I’d been sure 
you’d committed the great sin.” 

Martha leapt to her feet. Her arms were ex¬ 
tended, imploringly, pleadingly, as she took a halting 
step toward her husband. 

“But I didn’t, True, I didn’t! You know I 
didn’t!” she sobbed. But the pleading arms were 
left to drop achingly to her sides. Trueman Tisdale 


THE RIVER ROAD 


229 


turned once more from his wife to gaze out over the 
storm-ridden sea. His voice was almost harsh as he 
answered—and once more none but he knew the 
battle that was being waged within him to take that 
erring girl wife in his arms and let her sob out her 
heart on his own. 

Not yet, however, had his habit of repression 
worn itself out. Not yet had there come the stress 
that would tear it from its moorings in his nature 
forever to give a vent for the deep kindly love that 
was the basis of his whole soul. 

“You don’t have to prove anything to me,” was 
his only answer. “It’s the others. I love you.” 

So simply were the last three words spoken that 
Martha could not believe she had really heard them. 
Her own heart, that emotional heart that had been 
so starved, was in her mouth as she ran to him, 
clutched at his unresponsive coat sleeve as she 
whispered: “And I love you, Trueman—I do—oh, 
I do! You believe it, don’t you?” 

“Trying to. Trying hard—” Not even the 
motion of an eyelash in her direction rewarded the 
girl wife as she turned brokenly and once more 
dropped into her chair. 

“If I thought you didn’t—why—” 

“It’s your battle, now.” At last Trueman turned 
from the window and his deep eyes sought out those 
of his wife. “You must win it alone.” 

“I—was only thinkin’ that when men like 
Ozra—” she murmured softly, but there was a 




230 


THE RIVER ROAD 


dominant note, unheard before in Trueman Tisdale’s 
tones as he whirled to march up and down the room. 

“Then that’s my battle,” he said conclusively and 
with a savage note that was a new one to Martha 
Tisdale. 

All day the storm raged with unabated violence. 
Out at sea the clouds were low and black, torn by 
the wind, driving up from the southwest like mad, 
threatening still heavier weather. Spume and spray 
shot up from the rocks near shore like a fog. 

It was such a day as Bayporters were usually glad 
to stay indoors—to listen to the patter or sharp gusts 
of rain on their weathered roofs and thank God 
for those roofs. But to-day it was different. Not 
even a wind that turned umbrellas inside out, or made 
so’westers all but useless was enough to keep man 
or woman of Bayport indoors when there was so 
much to discuss. 

The post office was as filled at mail time as it 
had ever been on any sunny day during the summer. 
The splash of rain on roofs was unnoticed through 
the clatter of tongues beneath in competition. There 
had been nothing so vital to discuss in Bayport since 
the hanging of old Sid Traymore who had murdered 
his wife down in one of those fishing shacks on the 
beach—the same sort of shack that had housed 
Martha Rogers when her father had been alive. 

Once more Martha Tisdale was on the grill, and 
while she ate her heart out, out there in her home 
beside the booming breakers, her fate was in the 


THE RIVER ROAD 


231 


hands of this mob whose fury was no less than that 
of the elements, and, as Captain Hen had remarked, 
not half as kind. 

Ozra Hemingway was everywhere. As the day 
wore on, it was he who was indefatigable in carrying 
messages and the newest bits of gossip from house 
to house. He it was who was the chief messenger 
of the Woman’s Auxiliary who had declared it a holi¬ 
day, and held an all-day session, much to the disgust 
of the old-timers who came right in, looked around, 
and walked right out again. 

Early, Ma Tisdale had been commanding general, 
but things began to thicken like the clouds over the 
town when it was given out in the late afternoon that 
Ma Tisdale, martyr that she was in the eyes of her 
cohorts, had finally collapsed from sheer worry and 
righteous indignation, and had been put to bed in 
Mehitable Sands’ spare room. 

Twilight fell early on the muggy, sullen day. Out 
in the Tisdale home, Trueman Tisdale, not yet with 
his mind made up to go and leave his wife in this, 
her crisis—despite the fact that because of the storm 
he should be aboard the lightship—lighted the 
kitchen lamp from a taper he lit over the open fire of 
the stove, and set it so that its rays fell out of the 
window where the blackness was gathering deeper. 
He was thinking hard—harder than he ever had be¬ 
fore. He was wondering if, after all, he understood 
Martha. There had been just another passage be¬ 
tween them. Martha had been deploring the absence 
of Ma Tisdale. 



232 


THE RIVER ROAD 


“It’s all wrong, True,” she had cried. “This is 
her home—and yours—I’m only an outsider—I 
can’t blame her for not wanting to stay, thinking the 
way she does. I came back with you, but deep down 
in my heart I was afraid that there wouldn’t be but 
one way out of it all. All during the trip home, I 
was praying and hoping it wouldn’t have to come to 
this—but there doesn’t seem to be any use. Now 
that it has come, I’m the one to go. I’m the one 
who must go!” 

Trueman’s answer was characteristically short. 

“You’re my wife, Martha. You stay here, no 
matter who else goes.” 

He might have said more, but for the sudden 
interruption of a pounding on the kitchen door, 
which was hastily flung open by Captain Caleb, who, 
followed by the lustily breathing Captain Hen, indi¬ 
cating that the trip to the Tisdale home had been a 
hurried one, was fairly blown into the room by a 
sharper blast of wind. 

The storm had developed to tropical hurricane 
proportions. Intermittent flashes of sharp lightning, 
followed by thunderous crashes, indicated that a 
local storm had developed over head and had 
mingled with the equinoctial fury, the combined 
elements conspiring to create a veritable inferno of 
din and strife. 

With the entrance of Captain Hen and Captain 
Caleb, their way was lighted by so sharp a flash of 
lightning with its attendant roaring clap of thunder 


THE RIVER ROAD 


233 


that Martha involuntarily closed her eyes and 
covered her ears with her hands. 

Only Trueman was calm. He looked inquiringly 
at his excited visitors. 

“What’s it now, Captain Caleb?” he queried. 

“It’s that Ozra, again, True—the yellow skunk!” 
The burly captain’s words came with an explosion, 
but still the lightship captain’s calmness was not dis¬ 
turbed. 

“What’s he doing?” was his second query. 

“ ’Tain’t so much what he’s doin’, it’s what he’s 
sayin’,” Captain Hen, who blowing like a porpoise, 
and clawing at his whisker fringe, found breath to 
offer his bit. Then Tisdale frowned ominously. 

Captain Caleb shook his head. “Warnin’ ain’t 
goin’ to do no good now, True,” he said dolefully. 
“Ye don’t know what he and them others has been 
up to all day. Right there in the club they was, but 
how the gosh-a-mighty they would want ter git out 
in this storm is more’n I can say—and Oz a’talkin’ 
to ’em, a tellin’ ’em how Ma Tisdale had been put 
out o’ house and home and is grievin’ herself to 
death over to Mehit’ Sands’ place, an’ all of them 
wimmin a-waggin’ their heads an’ - agreein’ with him 
in what he said ’bout—’bout—” 

He did not mention the name of Trueman’s wife 
as his kindly keen old eyes watched her as she stood 
with clenched hands and frightened expression, 
waiting for she knew not what. But both she and 
her husband knew who Captain Caleb meant without 
words from him. “An’ men a noddin’ to one an- 


234 


THE RIVER ROAD 


other,” he added, with a snort of disgust that he 
must confess this about any man in Bayport. 

“An’ that’s why we’ve come, True.” It was Cap¬ 
tain Hen who took up the tale. “We heered them— 
and they’re cornin’ here—we didn’t beat them by 
much—ye hear?” 

He cocked his head to one side in a familiar 
listening attitude as above the storm clamor could be 
heard the unmistakable sounds of voices—many 
voices—and raised in the angry protests of a mob 
spirit that has been wrought up diligently to the point 
of explosion. 

Back against the wall Martha shrank, her eyes 
widening in a face that was already too pale from the 
emotions of two eventful days. Her hands were 
clenched at her breast, as she listened. 

Trueman, too, heard, but for a moment there 
was no movement from him except a stiffening of his 
tall young figure as he said simply: 

“I’m ready for them.” 

There were those of his neighbors, whom the 
eloquence of Ozra Hemingway had persuaded to 
interfere with Trueman Tisdale’s running of his own 
affairs, who might not have felt such a righteous 
exaltation as they sloshed along in the mud of the 
River Road, or shrunk from the nearness of light¬ 
ning flashes, could they have seen the eyes of True¬ 
man Tisdale just then. 

A shout, louder than the mumble of angry voices 
which had been the first herald of the approach of 
those who disapproved of the lightship captain— 


THE RIVER ROAD 


235 


and of his wife! It sounded like a cry of triumph. 
The vanguard of the self-appointed administrators 
of the Tisdale affairs had gained the small gate at 
the end of the shell-bordered walk. 

Another and another! The sound, with the sud¬ 
denness of the electric display outside the house, 
galvanized Trueman Tisdale into action. In one 
bound he had reached the kitchen door as his hand, 
which in passing had jerked his so’wester from the 
table with its lighted lamp, jammed that headgear 
down over his ears. 

Quick as he was, though, Captain Hen Berry was 
a little quicker. He stood before that door with 
outstretched arms, his chubby little legs wide apart 
as though he were clinging to the deck of a gale-rid¬ 
ing ship, his stocky figure an effective barrier. 

“It won’t do ye no good, True,” he argued. 
“They’re an ugly lot. We’ve seen ’em—that’s why 
we come—to tell ye not to see ’em.” 

Trueman’s harsh laughter held a menace. 

“Not see them?” he mocked. “I’m going to 
meet them. You get out of my way, Cap’n Hen 
Berry!” His long arm shot out to take the small 
ruddy captain from his path, but it was stopped half¬ 
way by the firm grasp of Captain Caleb. 

“Hen’s right, True,” he said firmly. “You can’t 
do nuthin’ now—” 

“Can’t, eh?” 

His voice was a snarl of rage as he heard the 
roars of his townsmen and women outside in the 


236 


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storm’s wildness, their clamor persistent even above 
the anger of the elements. 

“Can’t, eh? I’ll show—” It was a new Trueman 
Tisdale. 

But the arm he sought to wrench from the bind¬ 
ing grasp of his friend was gripped by a new hold. 
Through the window, guided by lightning flashes, 
Martha Tisdale had seen that oncoming mob—had 
recognized members of it, had seen the bitterness on 
wild countenances of the bedraggled, mud-spattered 
women and the determined hunching of rain-soaked 
masculine shoulders. She had realized what it meant. 
Her hands which had helplessly fluttered to her 
throat to stifle the low moan of anguish which had 
first come, came down to clench into fists. Then in 
two panther-like bounds she was beside her husband 
and the two men struggling with him to keep him 
from rushing out into the night. 

“But I can, True, I can!” she screamed, clutching 
at his arm imploringly. Her husband fixed her with 
the stern gaze before which she had always quailed, 
but for once it had lost its efficacy. “You get out of 
here—upstairs,” he ordered. “This is my affair.” 

Wildly Martha shook her head, as her hands 
clutched his sleeve more tightly. 

“No! No! It’s mine! It’s mine!” she cried. 
“Oh, True, you wanted me to show these people, and 
I’m going to—I’m going to—” She dashed breath¬ 
lessly on, unheeding either the gazes of amaze of 
the two doughty old captains or the disapproval of 
her husband. She ignored his attempted interrup- 


THE RIVER ROAD 


237 


tion. “You told me I had to show them I had the 
right to live, to breathe, to think, to be human. 
Well, now my chance has come, and I’m going to 
r do it! Listen to them out there—snarling, like a 
lot of snapping dogs that want to get at their 
prey—” 

Captain Caleb’s hold loosened on Trueman’s arm 
as the latter whirled on his wife. “You’re not go¬ 
ing to do anything,” he told her with finality. “I’m 
taking this up with Ozra.” With one arm he sought 
to force her backward from the kitchen door, sought 
to loosen the grip on his arm. But, shaking, tremb¬ 
ling, pleading, she held on. 

“No! No!” she screamed. “/ am taking it up— 
1 am! I am the one who’s been the cause of it all, 
and I am going out there and face them and tell them 
the truth—the truth! Do you understand! It 
doesn’t matter that I have never wanted to do wrong 
—that I have never wanted to harm any one—you 
least of all, but it’s been done and it’s them—they—!” 
And her arm made a swinging gesture of emphatic 
disgust toward the door through which could be 
heard the close angry murmurs of the gathered 
townspeople, their voices rising high above the 
tumult of the winds. Her voice, that had been 
pitched so high in the passion of her pleading, 
broke heart-rendingly. “Oh, True! True!” came 
her sob. “You told me I must make my own fight. 
That is what you wanted. And you haven’t any right 
to take this chance away from me!” 

Gently, but with determined force, Trueman Tis- 



238 


THE RIVER ROAD 


dale pushed his wife, foot by foot, away from the 
door through which she was determined to go. His 
face was stern and set but his voice coolly master¬ 
ful as he looked levelly into her eyes to bring to 
her his full meaning. 

“I forbid it, Martha,” he told her. “And I am 
master here. You are my wife, and this time I fight 
for both of us.” Again she sought to break away 
from him, but he had reached the other side of the 
room. 

“Go to your room!” he ordered sternly, but as she 
subsided in a limp heap against the wall, his voice 
was softer as he added: “You will leave this to 
me—if you love me.” 

Frantic pounding on the outside kitchen door inter¬ 
rupted Martha Tisdale before the words of plead¬ 
ing that were on her lips were framed. From out¬ 
side a roar went up to an accompaniment of thunder 
and a flash of lightning that lit up the farthest 
corners of the kitchen. It was Ozra Hemingway’s 
voice above all that they recognized—Ozra, in his 
element as self-constituted spokesman, his voice filled 
with what he believed a command of outraged 
righteousness. 

“Open the door!” he commanded, and there was 
something in that command that made Martha 
collapse shiveringly against the wall as her husband 
turned to stride across the room. 

Unobtrusively, Captain Hen Berry slid across to 
take his place beside the frightened girl, and it was 
his hand of comfort that she half-consciously 


THE RIVER ROAD 


7JO 


realized was patting her own. Hysterically she 
gripped it. Oh, it was so good to find one hand not 
turned against her! 

Again came the command from outside as the 
timbers of the doorway shook with the insistent 
knocking. 

“Open that door, or we will—” 

But before True had reached it in answer to the 
summons, Captain Caleb Fish had grasped his arm. 

“Don’t do it, True,” he urged. “It will only 
mean more trouble, and—” 

“Open that door!” 

In the face of the storm, Trueman Tisdale threw 
open the door before the command had been com¬ 
pleted. Outside, the faces of his townspeople were 
outlined in the flashes of the storm. But they were 
not the kindly faces of the Bayporters he believed 
he knew. They were wry faces, distorted with a 
strange passion of the Puritans who on so many 
other occasions before had flayed women. 

In the open doorway, True Tisdale towered above 
the wizened-faced man, the leader of the mob who 
had come to denounce. His face was cold and set 
as he spoke quietly. 

“Well, Ozra Hemingway,” he demanded, “what 
are you wanting?” 


CHAPTER XIX 


F OR a full moment the tableau held. As True¬ 
man Tisdale looked scornfully out past their 
leader to the mob of men and women he had 
once thought friends, there was only the labored 
breathing of men to be heard. Then a whimper from 
a rain-drenched woman on the outer circle and the 
quick-drawn sigh of Martha Tisdale broke the ten¬ 
sion. It did so as effectively as the sudden roar and 
streak of blinding light that flashed down out of the 
darkened sky in the wind-swept night. 

With his usual belligerent assurance, Ozra 
Hemingway regained control of himself as he heard 
the murmured urgings of those he led. 

“What’s the matter?” he whined, sarcastically. 
“Are ye afeered of us?” 

With one movement of his mighty arm Trueman 
Tisdale swept the small man into the room behind 
him, and it was Captain Caleb Fish who slammed 
the door in the faces of the advance guard who 
sought to follow. The shouts of anger that greeted 
this action did not tend to ease the fast-beating heart 
of Martha, who clung to Captain Hen Berry’s hand, 
her fingers gripped into his flesh. 

“I’m asking you, Hemingway,” Trueman Tisdale 
ground out through clinched teeth, as he held Ozra 

240 


THE RIVER ROAD 


241 


Hemingway off to look squarely into his eyes, ‘Tm 
asking you again—what are you wanting?” 

Like a small puffy pouter pigeon, the little sea cook 
blew out his narrow chest while his new suspender 
threatened to break at the vigor with which it 
snapped against his body. 

“I’m representin’ th’ people of this community,” 
he squealed importantly, but it was Captain Hen’s 
snort that stopped him. 

“Ye’re not representin’ me, Oz Hemingway,” he 
interrupted, and it was with a vigorous nod of mean¬ 
ing that he was supported by Captain Caleb who, 
standing with legs wide apart in that manner so 
reminiscent of the days he strode a ship’s deck, gave 
added assurance. 

“Nor me,” said Captain Caleb. 

Supported by the roar of the waiting mob which 
broke out with renewed violence at the delay, and 
the fact that they were shut out of the important 
happenings, the spokesman once more began, in 
answer to Trueman: 

“Anyway, we’re here. And we—” 

Quiet as she had been since the demand on her 
husband to open the door, the tension was too much 
for Martha Tisdale. Too quick for Captain Hen’s 
restraining hand, she leapt forward to face her 
traducer, as she spoke quickly, half hysterically: 

“Oh, True,” she wailed, “don’t let him say any¬ 
thing—anything! You—” and she turned passion¬ 
ately on Ozra as her whole slender body shook with 
the violence of her emotions. “You,” she cried, “and 


M2 


THE RIVER ROAD 


your lying tongue! You, with your narrow, heart¬ 
less, frozen hearts and consciences that have been 
taken out of a book! You hypocrites—” 

“Martha!” Trueman Tisdale’s voice was a stern 
command. 

But the girl’s onslaught had not phased Ozra 
Hemingway. He was sullen as he looked past her, 
his eyes never meeting her own. 

“I’m talkin’ to yer husband,” he informed her. 

“I’m listening.” There was the snap of a whip in 
Trueman’s answer, and he seemed not to notice the 
wife who had again turned from him for the com¬ 
forting clasp of Captain Hen Berry’s hand. 

“It’s reached th’ point where we kain’t let no 
woman who has—” again began the little man, but 
once more it was Martha who interrupted him, her 
hands flung out in a passionate gesture toward the 
speaker. 

“Oh, you sha’n’t say it! You sha’n’t! You 
sha’n’t!” she cried wildly, so wildly that Trueman 
turned for one moment from the man whom he had 
not ceased to try to face down to lay his hand 
gently on his wife’s arm. But he did not look at her 
as he spoke. His eyes, with their lowering brows, 
were all for Ozra Hemingway. And it was that 
look on the face of the man he had come to de¬ 
nounce for his action in defending his own wife that 
made Ozra Hemingway wish most sincerely that he 
had not been brought into that house alone. He 
needed the support of the muttering crowd outside, 
that crowd wrought up to its present passion by 


THE RIVER ROAD 


243 


words of his own as much as by anything else—the 
words he had spent the day in scattering. And so 
with his gaze never faltering from Ozra, Trueman 
Tisdale took time for one soothing remark to his 
wife he would quiet. 

“You said you loved me, Martha,” he reminded, 
but it was a different tone he used to the small man. 
“I’m waiting, Ozra Hemingway.” 

Ozra cleared his throat. 

“It’s all bin talked over,” he hesitated, “and— 
and, well,” he exploded, with a trace of his former 
belligerency, as he gained courage from the shouts 
that went up outside. “Ye might as well know, True 
Tisdale. It’s bin decided Martha’s got ter leave this 
town!” 

“Who says that?” The crack of the whip was 
in the husband’s voice again. 

“It’s bin decided.” Ozra was sullenly holding 
his ground. 

“It’s a God Almighty outrage, that’s what hit is,” 
exploded Captain Hen as his hands gripped 
Martha’s, but the more tightly as though to give her 
still further assurance of his friendship. 

“Who says it?” said Trueman Tisdale again, and 
his jaw shot out in a menace that Ozra Hemingway 
did not fail to note, nor to make its impression. 
More than ever he was beginning to find little relish 
for the job that but a short time before he had been 
so eager to undertake. It was one thing to hold the 
center of the stage with an approving and applaud¬ 
ing audience to back him up, and quite another to 


244 


THE RIVER ROAD 


go through his dramatics alone, and especially to face 
down such a man as Trueman Tisdale. There was 
a glint in Trueman’s eye and a tone in his voice that 
Ozra Hemingway did not like—distinctly did not 
like—nor did he like so much being alone with True¬ 
man and Captain Caleb and Captain Hen and 
Martha. Furtively he glanced about him toward the 
door before he answered. And the fear that was 
beginning to show itself was not lessened as he saw 
Captain Caleb stride unobtrusively toward the door 
before which he placed his huge bulk. Ozra Hem¬ 
ingway must, it looked pretty certain, go on with what 
he had started. 

“Well?” Trueman shot out the one word. “Who 
says it?” he repeated. 

With a sweep of his hand Ozra indicated the mob 
outside, which was getting more clamorous with the 
passage of time, and with the storm which was beat¬ 
ing down with ever-increasing fury—a storm to dis¬ 
courage any but those who had been wrought up for 
hours to the fanatical condition that could make 
them disregard personal comfort. 

“All of ’em—out thar’,” said Ozra, and then, his 
truculence returning for a moment more as he gained 
courage by the shouts. “An’ I’m waiting ter take 
yer answer back ter ’em.” 

For the first time, all the fury that Trueman Tis¬ 
dale had been withholding in that quiet exterior of 
his, but which had seethed beneath the surface until 
it had reached the explosion point, burst forth. His 
voice was not a roar, but a hard, steel-like intonation 


THE RIVER ROAD 


245 


that shut out the roar of the wind and thunder as 
hard fists doubled themselves to be shaken toward 
the outside mob. 

“Damn them!” it came. “Damn them!” he re¬ 
peated, and those friends who had known him 
through all his quiet years had never imagined that 
Trueman Tisdale could hold such a depth of passion 
as his contorted face displayed. 

Step by step, each one a menacing one, he ad¬ 
vanced on Ozra Hemingway, who shivered as he re¬ 
treated, looking wildly about for a chance to escape. 
Trueman’s hands seemed about to clutch the small 
stringy throat that rose above Ozra’s frayed shirt, 
as his eyes fastened on the frightened rat eyes. 

“So you want an answer, do you?” he went on as 
he inched toward the retreating little gossip. “Well, 
then, you tell them that I have run my house in the 
past; that I am still running it; that I am going to 
run it so long as God leaves a breath of life in my 
body, and that I am going to run it without their 
help. Tell them that!” 

At the door, Ozra Hemingway was seeking to 
escape the wrath of the advancing man. But it was 
Captain Caleb whose mountainous body intervened 
between him and his mouthing cohorts outside— 
whose angry voices were getting louder and louder 
as though in competition with the rage of the storm. 
He struggled with the man who barred his progress. 

“Let me out! Let me out!” he screamed in a 
high tone of terror, but Captain Caleb shook his 
head as he refused to move his huge bulk. And it 
was then that Trueman Tisdale acted. One of his 


246 


THE RIVER ROAD 


big hands shot out to grasp the small man by the 
neck. With the other he lifted him high in air, and 
shook him as a terrier might shake a rat—shook 
him so that his protests of fright were incoherent. 

With words that accented each shake of the small 
body, Trueman Tisdale rasped in a voice that 
terrified. 

“Once before you made me want to kill you,” he 
hissed, “and now—” 

With all his small might, Ozra Hemingway 
struggled in the grasp of the man he had infuriated 
to the point of being a potential murderer. 

“Let me go—let me go!” he begged in tones of 
fright. “Yer chokin’ me—” 

“Careful, True—” Captain Hen Berry, into 
whose arms Martha had thrown herself to hide her 
face at the sight of her husband’s rage, admonished 
the maddened lightship captain, but Trueman seemed 
not to have heard. 

One final shake he gave the man he held, and 
then as he strode forward, still holding him from 
him, it was to Captain Caleb that he spoke. 

“Open the door!” 

Rain that swept in a fury across the door sill and 
a crash of thunder with its close-attending lightning, 
met them as the door was flung open. Outside, they 
could see the faces that pressed forward and could 
hear the shouts of anger as those he led beheld Ozra 
Hemingway held high in air in the Tisdale kitchen 
'doorway. There was a concerted rush forward. 


THE RIVER ROAD 


247 


The kitchen lamp flickered and all but went out as 
the gusts of wind swept through the room. 

“Let me go!” shrieked Ozra, and there was a 
wildness in his voice as he begged the mob he could 
not see. “Don’t let him kill me—” 

A shake from the hand of Trueman Tisdale, and 
his pleading died in his throat. But it was not to 
Ozra that the infuriated husband spoke. He was 
through with him, save for the example of what 
might be expected at the hands of this new Trueman 
Tisdale. Above the roar of the wind, above the 
thunder crashes, he bellowed to those men and 
women outside there on his pebbled walk and rain- 
drenched grass plots and flower beds. 

“You’re wanting your answer,’’ he roared, and he 
held Ozra still higher for the one moment before 
he flung him out into the midst of the excited Bay- 
porters. “Here it is!” And Ozra Hemingway fell 
plunk onto the so’wester of Mehitable Sands, and 
clutched at her sodden raincoat as they both went 
down in a howling mass into the puddle of water that 
had been Martha Tisdale’s nasturtium bed. 

But Trueman Tisdale was not concerned with 
Mehitable Sands any more than with Ozra Heming¬ 
way. He did not mince words. 

“Here is your answer! Damn you and your 
rotten tongues. 

“You all wanted Martha to go wrong—you’re 
happy because you think something’s happened! 

“To HELL with all of you—you nest of hissing 
snakes! That’s my answer! To HELL with you!” 


CHAPTER XX 


T RUEMAN TISDALE’S mind was in a 
curious jumble. That was evidenced when he 
did not even hear the boom of the gun that 
carried inshore from far out across the roaring 
breakers and the turbulent spindrift, the seething 
expanse of waters that had but a short period before 
been as peaceful as an inland lake. It was not like 
Trueman, nor like any Tisdale, not to hear a signal 
gun—the signal gun from his own lightship. 

Outside, they had heard it—as did Captain Hen 
and Captain Caleb—and it was the boom of that 
gun that had turned those neighbors of Trueman 
Tisdale’s from their purpose of breaking down his 
door, a purpose that Captain Hen and Captain 
Caleb were bent on frustrating when they had rushed 
out, leaving Trueman there in his chair, motionless 
and silent, now that he had had his say. 

“That gun is from the lightship—we’ll take a 
look,” Captain Hen had whispered, as he unhooked 
a pair of marine glasses from the kitchen wall. The 
two men slipped out all but unnoticed save for the 
grateful glance and warm handclasp of thanks that 
Martha Tisdale gave them as she hesitated whether 
or not to speak to her husband. 

It was with a concerted movement that the men 
and women—much of their fury against Martha and 

248 


THE RIVER ROAD 


249 


Trueman already expended in their damp wait, and 
the ignominious failure of Ozra Hemingway to bring 
to a climax any of the things he had so pompously 
asserted he would accomplish—turned toward the 
beach with its fuming breakers. Again came the 
boom of the lightship’s signal proclaiming to the 
people ashore the danger that lay for some poor un¬ 
fortunates out in that raging sea. 

Not a soul in Bayport but who knew such things 
only too well—not one but who had heard tales of 
wrecks along that coast since childhood. Too many 
there were who had known heartache and unfor¬ 
gotten griefs brought about by the treachery of the 
cruel jutting rocks of Ripping Reef. 

“A vessel goin’ on the rocks! A wreck!” The 
words were shrilled above the blasts of the tempest 
wind, as the mob dashed madly to the headland, the 
nearest land to the reef. Like rain came the spume 
of the breakers beating in on the rocky shore below. 

Guided by lightning flashes, they ran, each know¬ 
ing something portentous was happening out there 
in the wind and darkness and mountainous white- 
topped waves and scud—but maddened by the 
thought of their helplessness, a helplessness to aid 
whoever might be in danger that only a seacoast 
people can feel. 

“There goes the signal gun agin!” screamed a 
woman in a high-pitched voice that carried above the 
crash of the elements. “Oh, where’s Cap’n Tisdale? 
Don’t he know they’re signalin’ him from the light¬ 
ship—can’t he hear?” 

“What ye make her out to be, Caleb?” yelled 


250 


THE RIVER ROAD 


Captain Hen, as he ran with what speed his short fat 
legs would permit behind the bigger man. 

“Kain’t make her out,” answered Captain Caleb 
between puffs. “She’s a steamer and she’s a-headin’ 
in shore—straight toward the rocks—Ah, I could 
see her plain then—” as a sharper flash than the last 
lit up the turbulent sea. “By godfrey! What a 
night! What a night!” he groaned. 

“And what a way to die,” awesomely added 
Captain Hen, more to himself than to anyone else, 
as his eyes, too, made out the endangered craft as 
it wallowed in the trough of the sea, but a short dis¬ 
tance beyond the reef—but too far for thought of 
aid from the mainland. 

A thundering crash, and a woman’s shrill scream. 

“Oh, oh! What’s the matter with her crew? 
Why don’t they do somethin’?” 

In the general jumble of voices that reached the 
two old captains as they ran into the midst of the 
excited mob—excited now for something far different 
than that which had spurred them on but a few 
moments before, came the futile calls for some one 
—any one—to do something. 

Strange how the mood of human beings can 
change in so short a time! Within the last few 
minutes, there were those who had clamored for the 
overthrow—even the death—if need be, of a fellow- 
townswoman. Now, those same hearts were bleed¬ 
ing for other humans, totally unknown to them, who 
were at the mercy of far kinder elements than human 
passion. 


THE RIVER ROAD 


251 


“All hands to the beach!” 

“Get out a boat!” 

“Get all the men—” 

“Where’s Tisdale—” 

“Get Tisdale!” 

Orders there were, advice in plenty—but no one 
who seemed to know what to do in the crisis which 
only the hand of the Almighty could swing toward 
life or death for those battling against wind and 
wave which in its fury seemed taunting mere help¬ 
less humanity to take up a challenge. 

“All hands to the beach! All hands to the 
beach J” 

It was the general outcry above all the others; 
the shrieks of frightened women; their screams 
mingled with prayers as they fell on their knees with 
hands uplifted toward the black heavens split 
spasmodically by the keen cuts of lightning which 
showed the distant ship struggling in the seaway. 

Above the tumult came the cry of Captain Hen 
again. 

“She’s goin’ ter strike!” he cried. “Oh, what a 
way to die! What a night!” 

“They’re signaling out there for True Tisdale,” 
howled Captain Caleb, making a megaphone of his 
huge hands the better for his smaller companion to 
hear him. “He’ll hear, never fear—but what kin he 
do?” 

His eyes swept out over the range of waters, the 
slash of rainswept surf and the turbulence of 
thunder, and the lightning—that made out the en- 


252 


THE RIVER ROAD 


dangered craft as clear as day for one instant, only 
to plunge it in black darkness the next. It lit up too, 
the huddled mob on the headland, the women in their 
bedraggled shawls, and the so’westers they wore like 
their husbands and brothers—their awe-stricken 
faces turned seaward or heavenward—the broken 
remains of the half-buried hulk that stood up out of 
the shore just beneath them, and partly in reach of 
the hungry breakers—the gloomy, desperate counte¬ 
nances of Captain Hen and Captain Caleb, who 
knew, perhaps better than any among them what it 
meant to be out there in that hellish sea. 

Clambering down the stairway to the shore, and 
making his way to the tipmost top of the old wreck 
as though that height would give him a better van¬ 
tage point, Captain Hen stood outlined in the next 
flash, a flash that made the tall cedar tree swaying 
above him at the top of the steps leading to the Tis¬ 
dale’s front yard, look like a slashing, menacing 
finger of evil pointing upward to the heavens. He 
brought out the old marine glass which he had hastily 
grabbed up from the Tisdale kitchen, and he focused 
it on the laboring vessel beyond the reef. 

Captain Caleb, Ozra Hemingway and a half 
dozen others of the men, made their way after him 
and took shelter behind the hulk. 

“What do you make her out?” called Captain 
Caleb anxiously, as the others, seeing the glass, 
pressed closer about the sturdy old man who held it. 

“I think she’s a freighter,” he yelled, as he 
lowered his glass in the darkness between flashes, 
and howled above the crash of the accompanying 


THE RIVER ROAD 


253 


thunder. “How in God’s name did she ever come 
ter get so clus’ in on a lee shore in this storm?’’ 

Once more he lifted his glasses, as Captain Caleb 
this time let out a groan, dashing back out of the 
way of a breaker, heavier than those preceding which 
drove the others rearward. “She hain’t got a chance 
in a thousan’! Who is she, I wonder—” 

Captain Hen shook his head. “Stranger in these 
parts. Kain’t see how she missed th’ lightship— 
kain’t understand—” 

“Her rudder must be jammed,” offered Captain 
Caleb. 

Lights from out to sea that shone different even 
in the lightning flashes brought out exclamations 
and lamentations from the people on the headland, 
according to their temperaments—red streaks 
against the black of night. Well they knew those 
signs, those Bayporters. 

“The rockets!” cried a woman as she wrung her 
hands helplessly. “There go the rockets—” 

Wildly, futilely, distressingly, the surging mob 
rushed about, many of them making their way down 
the rickety stairway, in their anxiety to be nearer the 
danger that awaited others, but were themselves so 
helpless to aid. 

“Lord!” ejaculated Captain Hen, for the fourth 
time “what a time to be out there and helpless!” 

“I could see her jest as plain as day then,” 
screamed the hysterical voice of Mehitable Sands. 
“They want help—that True Tisdale—where is he! 
Oh, why don’t somebuddy tell him to hurry—” 

“They hain’t got a chance—not a chance,” 


254 


THE RIVER ROAD 


mourned Captain Caleb— “They’ll drown like rats, 
if she strikes, and how in time anybuddy’s goin’ 
ter—” 

The whine of Ozra Hemingway broke in on his 
mental faculties for the first time. Not that Ozra’s 
tongue had been idle—far from it—but Captain 
Caleb had been too much absorbed in watching the 
tragic scene spread before him in its setting of light 
flashes from black skies to pay any attention to the 
small man he had seen dumped so ignominiously be¬ 
fore his neighbors into the storm but a few short 
minutes before. 

“It’s judgment,” cried Ozra. 

Captain Hen lowered his glass and in the next 
flash his face could be seen distorted with a scowl. 

“Hold yer tongue, Oz Hemingway,” he yelled. 
“Ye’re in ’nough trouble for one day.” 

But though he had been so thoroughly cowed by 
the righteous indignation of a husband who defended 
his wife, the little man had no intention of subduing 
his belligerency for Captain Hen Berry. He wasn’t 
afraid of him—at least not during the storm excite¬ 
ment. He thrust out his wizened little face, so that 
its smallest wrinkle was brought into prominence by 
the lightning. 

“Why hain’t the captain of the lightship here— 
I’m askin’ ye that?” he jibed. “Trouble waitin’ fer 
him and he—” 

“There goes another gun!” 

Shriller voices than Ozra’s drowned out his criti¬ 
cism, but not even the elements could keep his rancid 
tongue quiet for long. 


THE RIVER ROAD 


255 


“My God,” shouted Captain Caleb, using a more 
emphatic oath than common, as the lightning slashed 
about the doomed vessel, pounding itself on the reef. 
“She’s struck!” 

“Why don’t th’ crew of the lightship put out with 
a boat and help them?” 

Ozra’s face thrust itself so close to that of the 
big captain that Captain Caleb could smell the 
other’s tobacco-laden breath before the drive of the 
furious wind could sweep it away. 

“What’s wrong with her captain, says I,” he 
blatted. 

“Damn you, keep quiet,” Captain Caleb roared, 
but Ozra was not silenced. 

“He’ll answer to th’ Gov’ment fer this,” he 
prophesied with a wise wagging of his head under 
the so’wester he had had to tie under his chin to 
keep on. 

To the watchers on the beach and on the head¬ 
land above, it seemed that an eternity had passed 
since they had discovered the endangered vessel. In 
reality it had been so short a time that only a few 
minutes had elapsed between the firing of the first 
and last signal guns from the lightship. 

Captain Caleb had been certain—so certain that 
he had not once even considered turning back into 
the Tisdale cottage to remind Trueman Tisdale of 
the signals or that duty awaited him. Captain Caleb 
was himself so assured of the folly of making any 
effort to go out in that wild sea from the mainland in 
the best open boat that was ever built that he had 
it in his heart to wish that Trueman might have been 


256 


THE RIVER ROAD 


still farther away, that he might have been spared 
the anguish of knowing that there were human beings 
who needed him and whom he could not help. 

A shout went up from the bedraggled townspeople 
on the headland, though, as a new light appeared—a 
shaft which pierced the darkness from the opened 
front door of the Tisdale home. 

Through its glow, Trueman Tisdale could be seen 
plunging down, down the little pathway and it was 
with a few bounds that he reached the stairway and 
thence down to bring up alongside the sunken wreck 
topped by the old mariner with the marine glasses. 

A moment later Martha Tisdale w r as plainly in 
view as she looked out into the darkness. The door 
dosed behind her quickly as she clapped on one of 
her husband’s old hats and dashed out into the dark¬ 
ness to follow him. 

The rest of the mob, emboldened by the temerity 
of the others, followed, and now all were assembled 
below on the rocky shore in the shelter of the old 
hulk. 

Wordless, his lips drawn into the tight line that 
showed when the luminous electric flashes lit up the 
wild night, the lightship captain reached for Cap¬ 
tain Hen’s glasses. Understandingly and as word¬ 
less, the old man passed them over. 

Only for the breath of a second that he waited 
for the next lightning stab, Trueman Tisdale stood 
atop the hulk, like the statue of a man carved from 
its wooden sides. But his keen eyes, trained to the 
big sweep of distances of the sea that was a big part 


THE RIVER ROAD 


257 


of his life, lost no iota of the peril of the vessel that 
had begun to pound itself to death on Ripping Reef. 
Save for a few subdued moans, the mutters of a 
prayer from hysterical women on their knees in the 
wet sand, no human sound broke above the crash of 
thunder and the roar of the surf. The watchers 
waited silently with bated breath for what Trueman 
Tisdale might do. 

He did not keep them waiting. There was a ges¬ 
ture of determination in his every movement as he 
shoved the glasses back into Captain Hen’s hands. 
He leapt down from the old wreck to stride through 
the pressing crowd. Unheeding he was of them as if 
they had been periwinkles in his path. His dory, 
which was still beached far up where he had shoved 
it the day before when he had come ashore, instead 
of taking it around into the little cove, was his ob¬ 
jective. One hand was on its prow to drag it free 
when Captain Caleb, with surprising agility leapt 
after him. 

“True, True!” he cried, wildly. “Where air ye 
goin’, boy?” 

Tisdale’s hand swept toward the raging waters 
in the direction of the wrecked freighter, that could 
be seen only at intervals. 

“Out there,” he said shortly, between his tightly- 
clinched teeth. “Out there—where I belong.” 

“Ye kain’t make hit, True—only a miracle will 
git ye past those breakers. Help’s got ter come 
from offshore—the lightship—” 


258 


THE RIVER ROAD 


Determinedly, Trueman shook off the detaining 
hand. 

“There’ll be survivors,” he spoke in bitten-off 
words. “I think I can see another steamer away 
out. They’ll send a boat. And so will the lightship. 
But it’s those who may be washed inside the reef I 
can help.” 

“Lad! Lad! Hit kain’t be done!” 

“I’m captain of that lightship,” went on Trueman 
Tisdale, as if he had not been interrupted. It was in 
a grim voice. “There are humans out there who 
need me, and I’m going—” 

Captain Hen had clambered down from the old 
hulk, under the lea of which Trueman Tisdale had 
hauled the dory. He added his urgings to those of 
his old clubmate, but to both, Trueman Tisdale 
turned his back as he gave the small boat another 
shove nearer the water. 

Trueman paused briefly, and straightening his 
body, he looked for a moment toward the frightened 
faces of his townspeople. Once more he spoke, eco¬ 
nomical of his words. 

“When there’s been danger out there, there’s al¬ 
ways been a Tisdale to face it, I am not going to be 
the first to fail in my duty. Who volunteers to go 
with me?” There was something of scorn on his 
fine features outlined in the half light as he waited, 
but no word came. 

Then it was Martha, his wife, who broke the spell, 
as she flung herself on him, crying, pleading, clutch¬ 
ing at his coat. 


THE RIVER ROAD 


259 


“Oh, Trueman! Trueman!” she cried. “You 
must not! You must not! Ids death—and I need 
you so—” Her voice died off into a moan, but 
gently her husband held her off as he looked deeply 
into her eyes. 

“They need me, too, Martha—and I am going,” 
he said firmly. 

In the vivid flash of lightning that followed, the 
girl shrank back, but there was too much else for 
her to think of to notice the movement of shrinking 
away from contamination by her which was 
evidenced by the mob who a short time before had 
been seeking her—who had not forgotten their 
original purpose even in the stress of their new 
emotions. 

Nor did she or her husband see the gaunt tall 
figure in flapping wet calico that suddenly outlined 
itself up above them, on the headland, near the tree 
that stood sentinel at the top of the Tisdale steps 
leading toward the house. 

Miraculously, it seemed, Ma Tisdale had re¬ 
covered from her severe illness. Not until she had 
reached the scene did Ma know that other matters 
had claimed the attention of her neighbors. She only 
knew that she could not bear the strain of remaining 
quietly in bed at Mehitable Sands’ house while other 
Bayporters were getting for her the vengeance she 
craved from her stepdaughter-in-law. 

She had decided she must know—must see what 
was going on—and she had arrived from her long 
wet journey down the River Road, just in time to be 


260 


THE RIVER ROAD 


a witness of the heroism of her step-son, whom she 
had hoped to humiliate. 

But, though she had so hoped, there was a queer 
streak of affection in the heart of Ma Tisdale, no 
matter how she sought to hide it, as though it were 
a disgrace, and that one soft spot was for Trueman 
Tisdale. There had been not a little jealousy in her 
hatred of Martha, for until the younger woman had 
come to be mistress of the Tisdale home, Ma had 
looked on Trueman as her own son—her own to 
whom no other woman should lay claim. 

Now, unnoticed, her old heart beating faster than 
it had in many a long day, Ma Tisdale saw him 
standing in the midst of the storm as he called for 
volunteers. 

“Who’ll go with me?” he asked once more, 
straight and tall as a viking who was used to breast¬ 
ing any storm. His lip curled at the silence. 

Then a gasp went up from throats hoarse from 
hours of shrieks and screams as a small silent figure 
crossed the wet rocks and sand. 

Straight and slim as the sapling on the heights of 
the beach above her—the tree under which Ma Tis¬ 
dale stood and watched—and with her head held as 
proudly erect, Martha Tisdale took her stand be¬ 
side her husband. 

Her voice was not raised, but its determination 
carried above the roar of the elements. She spoke, 
not for the crowd, but to her husband. 

“Where you go—I go!” 


CHAPTER XXI 


Y 


E’RE mad—mad!” 

Captain Caleb’s protest rang out, but it 
was only Captain Hen, standing near Ozra 
Hemingway, whose eyes showed his delight at the 
dramatic possibilities, who heard the little man say: 
“Why shouldn’t she go?” 

Up under the cedar, Ma Tisdale made her 
presence known by a long drawn cry as she wrung 
her hands helplessly. 

“Oh, he’ll be drowned,” she howled, mournfully, 
“and all for no good. Kain’t nobuddy stop him?” 

But neither the protest of Ma Tisdale, nor the 
earnest pleadings of his two old captain friends 
budged Trueman Tisdale for one instant in his pur¬ 
pose. His hands pushed the dory to the edge of the 
water. His eyes sought Martha’s. 

“Get aboard,” he said, and then to Captain 
Caleb who made one last frantic appeal—but his 
searching gaze took in the entire mob who pressed 
forward as close to the breakers as they dared. “I 
am answering for what I do! Look out for your¬ 
selves! We’re off!” 

The situation was too tense for words. There was 
heard but the roar of the storm as Trueman Tis¬ 
dale steadied his dory for one second, and leapt into 

261 


262 


THE RIVER ROAD 


it as he gauged a wave, and the small craft shot out 
past its shelter into the breakers, its occupants half 
hidden by the spume that sprayed up about them. 

Good sailor that she was since childhood, Martha 
Tisdale sat in the stern with the steering oar as the 
boat shot ahead, driven with all the brawn of the 
sinewy arms of her husband. Trueman Tisdale was 
rowing with the strength of a Hercules. 

Back on the beach, Captain ITen, once more on 
the hulk with his glasses, let up a shout as the light¬ 
ning revealed that the small boat had cleared the 
outer edge of the breakers. A wild cheer answered 
him as he called the news. Captain Caleb bared his 
head to the rain and storm and whispered tensely: 
“God guide them!” 

There was a wilder burst of wind, and a more 
lurid flash of lightning, enabling the waiting ones 
ashore to see that the freighter was still holding, but 
that it was a matter of moments before she should 
go to pieces or slide off into deeper water on the 
inside of the reef. 

Oh, if Trueman Tisdale should make it, after all! 
More women dropped to their knees with voices up¬ 
lifted in prayer, and further back, the quavering 
voice of old Mrs. Barzum took up a wailing prayer 
song in which one after another joined. 

A groan from Captain Hen, and then his voice 
broke. 

“What is it, man, what is it?” Captain Caleb 
strained forward in his excitement. Captain Hen 


THE RIVER ROAD 263 

shook his head as he held the glass limply at his 
side. 

“A wave,” he choked, “as big as a mountain, and 
—and I kain’t see them—I kain’t look—” 

But his voice and hope came back to him as a great 
shout went up from the big captain who had taken 
the glasses from him. 

“Glory be!” shouted Captain Caleb. “They’ve 
ridden! They’ve ridden it!—I can see ’em! 
They’ve ridden it out!” 

“They kain’t keep it up—there hain’t no sense in 
hopin’,” Ozra Hemingway, too long out of the lime¬ 
light, put in his pessimistic voice. “There hain’t 
a livin’ bein’ can live in such a sea, let alone a boat—” 
But he was stopped by the snarl of Jonas Sands— 
Jonas, his whole ideas of the hour before switched 
about by the courageous action of the woman the 
tongues of this little man beside him and of some 
of the women who were now on their knees in prayer 
had led him to condemn. 

“They’re a-lastin’,” said Jonas. 

“She’ll kill him! She’ll kill him!” came Ma Tis¬ 
dale’s scream above the hubbub. She was now at 
the top of the stairway. “What does she know 
about a boat in such a sea? Oh, save him, some- 
buddy, save him!” 

Then came a greater crash of thunder and a 
lightning flash that seemed to split the universe—a 
pandemonium of sound that stopped Ma Tisdale’s 
high-pitched shrieks as the electric bolt shot straight 
through the tree under which she had stood but the 


264 


THE RIVER ROAD 


moment before and from which she had fled toward 
the beach just in time. The tree was cleft in its 
middle. 

Wet, frightened watchers scrambled wildly away 
for safety as the gaunt cedar came crashing down on 
the beach, its limbs aflame with an uncanny light, the 
unearthly gleam from its burning branches throwing 
a sickly glare up the whole stretch of beach; its sul¬ 
phurous odor wafting out over the tang of wet sea 
and skies. 

“It’s a judgment!” Ma Tisdale groaned, as she 
collapsed in a wet bundle on the w r etter ground. 
“God have mercy on their souls!” There was no 
thought of her own miraculous escape from death 
from the lightning bolt. 

“Some of ye wimmin go and ’tend her.” Captain 
Hen cried, and then ran toward Captain Caleb who 
had called out that Trueman and Martha had 
reached inside the reef near the wrecked vessel. 

And it was by superhuman efforts that the man 
and woman had driven their small boat through the: 
mountainous waves, up on their crest at one moment, 
to be thrown into a watery valley the next, but ever 
on! On! Until they had brought up as near the * 
rocks and the wrecked ship as the angry waters 
would permit. 

Then Trueman Tisdale could see that Captain 
Hen had been right—that the vessel was a freighter 
whose identity was unknown to them. And in that 
first glance, there escaped from the throats of both 
him and Martha a deep groan. It looked as though 


THE RIVER ROAD 


265 


their efforts had been in vain, for not one living soul 
could be seen on that wreck that was dashing itself 
to pieces on the flinty rocks! 

Near the wreck as he was, Trueman Tisdale knew 
its character, and was not therefore surprised that 
there were not passengers hanging on to the splinter¬ 
ing craft or lashing about in the sea. For such a 
freighter, he knew, carried only a small crew, and 
in such a crisis, it was more or less each man look 
out for himself. There must be someone about, he 
thought quickly—on spars, on broken beams—some¬ 
where. Eagerly he scanned the darkling sea. 

A form floated by, clinging with a death grip to a 
bit of wreckage. Then it was that Trueman Tis¬ 
dale, leaving the management of his boat to the 
woman who was his sole life-saving crew, reached 
out over the side of the dory, all but toppling over 
the frail craft, and dragged in the human derelict 
whom he laid face down in the boat, sodden and 
still. 

Not another survivor was in sight. 

It was not till he had made sure of this, though, 
that he thought of turning about, and it was when 
he veered sadly shoreward, that he discovered two 
limp bodies in the bottom of his dory. For Martha 
Tisdale, his courageous young wife, had fallen in a 
dead faint! With pounding heartbeats he saw her, 
but there was no chance to lift her up—to care for 
her! Poor girl! The strain had been too much. 
Perhaps he should not have let her come, but— 
His heart whispered to him even as he battled with 


266 


THE RIVER ROAD 


the waves—repeated the words she had uttered: 
“Where you go, I go!” 

Ashore, Captain Caleb, with the glasses, saw their 
newer, greater danger even before Trueman saw it 
himself. He had watched the rescue and had told 
the awed villagers, but he saw more—the wreck go¬ 
ing to pieces—the danger. 

“Pull, man, pull!” he roared, as though his voice 
would carry out there through the breakers. “She’ll 
catch you with one of her timbers!” 

“Pull! Pull! Pull!” His big old arms worked 
like flails as he sought to help Trueman Tisdale. He 
was not alone, for the crowd, hysterical in their 
tension, were working as hard as though each held 
an oar. They knew that Trueman Tisdale had made 
one rescue, and now he must come back. God would 
not let him fail at this late hour! Voices raised 
higher in prayer—hysterical wails added to the 
tumult. 

Captain Caleb’s blue eyes glistened as he turned to 
Ozra Hemingway. 

“They’re cornin’ back!” he declared. “Now 
what ye got to say?” 

“They hain’t back yet,” Ozra refused to admit 
anything. “I’m tellin’ ye it’s the judgment of God 
for what she’s done. They won’t ever come back.” 

Furiously Captain Caleb grasped the coat of Ozra 
Hemingway, his muscular arm flexed, and for the 
second time that night the small man’s body was 
shaken till his false teeth rattled. 

“And I’m tellin’ ye,” shouted the captain, “that 


THE RIVER ROAD 


267 


yer soul is nearer th’ gates of Hell than hit ever was 
before. Ye’ll be findin’ that out, Ozra Hemingway.” 

‘‘They’re headin’ for shore, cornin’ afore th’ 
wind!” Captain Hen danced on the wreck as he 
watched and gave out the bulletins his glass flashed 
him through the lightning illumined night. “Lord, 
how he handles them oars! What a man! He’s 
drivin’ her straight as an arrow fer—” 

The glasses dropped with a crash into the sand, 
as his hands went up to his face to hide the sight 
he had witnessed, as his voice quavered with the 
horror he could not suppress. 

“Hen! Hen! What is hit?” cried Captain Caleb 
as he jumped forward for the fallen glasses, the only 
means they had to know what was going on out there 
in the tumultuous sea. “What is it, man?” 

But the rubicund old man had sat down wearily on 
a rotting spar, all life, all hope gone for him. His 
voice was still and awed as he answered: “Martha! 
She’s—she’s gone!” 

“It kain’t be! It kain’t be! The Maker wouldn’t 
let hit be,” mourned Captain Caleb, as he brought 
the glasses up, but not before Ozra, at his side, had 
time to announce maliciously: “What did I tell yer— 
they won’t come back—God’s done it!” 

“Then if He has, I’m losin’ my faith in Him, and 
I hain’t expectin’ that!” shot out the other. 

But no further notice did he take of the maligner. 
His eyes were glued to the lenses through which he 
could see Trueman Tisdale’s boat hitting Gut Rapids 
and running them. Trueman Tisdale was, in fact, 


268 


THE RIVER ROAD 


rowing like a madman, but with the skill of a trained 
oarsman. Into the outer breakers, coming head-on 
for the beach, his dory shot unswervingly, and the 
light from the burning tree showed the stout little 
craft topping them. 

It was the signal for the men ashore, those who 
had not had the courage to go into that raging sea 
to assume command—to try to do something. Com¬ 
mands came then from all sides. All were willing to 
do that. 

“Stand ready to help when he lands!” 

“Lend a hand there!” 

“Be ready to take the bow!” 

“Damn the boat—get True Tisdale, and the man 
he got!” 

“Stand back and when she lands don’t rush him!” 

But it was Captain Caleb who assumed the final 
command, as in the days of his actual seagoing. The 
dory was almost upon them. One more breaker to 
breast and—land! 

“Be ready now,” he roared to the men who 
crowded forward in their eagerness. “Every man 
of ye to his job! You wimmin stand back—Look 
out—ready, every one of ye! She’s cornin’!” 

And lightly as a gull that perches on the mast of a 
ship on a sunshiny day, Trueman Tisdale’s dory 
dipped over the last breaker into the lee of the old 
hulk again, to have its bow seized by a dozen willing 
hands who dragged it clear of the seething backdrag. 

Other willing hands went out toward the ex¬ 
hausted man whose super-courage had performed a 


THE RIVER ROAD 


269 


miracle of rescue work, but they were pushed aside 
hy Trueman Tisdale himself, who jumped from the 
boat, to reach down and lift out tenderly the limp 
figure of his wife. A long-drawn series of sighs like 
a chorus greeted him. It seemed incredible to those 
who had believed that Martha Tisdale was some¬ 
where out there in the dark sea, to find her safe. 

Trueman spoke tersely. 

“Someone look after her—she’s fainted! We 
must bring this man around!” 

There were some willing feminine hands in that 
mob—some who had condemned her—who now 
reached out for Martha Tisdale and began their 
first-aid, as her husband, taking charge of his own 
rescue work, worked with a skill born of experience, 
with the help of others whom he commanded, to 
bring back to life the man he had dragged from the 
sea. 

“Move his arms! Lay him on his face! Someone 
get a lantern up at the house!” he ordered. 
“Faster! Faster, man,” to Jonas Sands, who was 
pumping up and down the arms of the half-drowned 
man. And then he pushed aside the man who was 
astride the sea’s victim and himself fell to with all 
the energy at his command to bring back life. 

Captain Hen shook his head sadly. 

“It’s no use, True,” he said. “And after all ye’ve 
done!” 

Savagely the rescuer turned. 

“There’s a chance, I tell you!” he snapped. “His 
arms—bend ’em—up—down, harder—harder!” 


270 


THE RIVER ROAD 


A slight groan from the man in the sand re¬ 
warded him. Trueman Tisdale lifted himself 
wearily, but by the lantern light there could be seen 
the exultation of accomplishment in his eyes. 

“He’s alive!” he said triumphantly. 

And from the awed lips of the crowd came the 
repetition: “He’s alive! Alive!” 

For just one moment Trueman Tisdale allowed 
himself to glance at his wife—into whose face the 
color was returning under the ministrations of the 
women who had taken her in charge—as he gave 
over the further work of first-aid to the other men. 
Stern as he was in duty, though, it was the rescued 
man who was his first thought. He bent over him. 

“Here,” he ordered. “Hold the light, some¬ 
one—” and Ozra Hemingway, ever officious, held up 
the lantern. “Now some of you, help me turn him 
over.” 

Another groan, more indicative of returning life 
than any that had preceded it, came from the almost 
drowned man as willing hands turned him over with 
his face toward the dark sky. Eagerly Ozra Hem¬ 
ingway swung the lantern above that face. And— 
lover of dramatics as he was—even Ozra Heming¬ 
way was for once overcome by what he saw. His 
breath came in quick jerks as he spoke awedly: 

“It’s NATE SANDERSON!” 

Trueman Tisdale whirled around to seize the lan¬ 
tern from the little man’s hands. Fie peered down 
into the face of the man he had saved. And his nails 
cut into the flesh of his hands as the lantern dropped 


THE RIVER ROAD 


271 


to the sand, the lighted wick to flicker there, as he 
raised himself erect, repeating, like one in a dream: 

“Nate Sanderson! HIM!” 

“He’s still breathing,” Captain Hen, working the 
man’s arms, looked up to eagerly speak. “There’s a 
chance to bring him ’round.” 

Faster than ever he resumed his operations, but 
the crowd which had closed in at the announcement 
of the rescued man’s identity were too w r rought up 
by the eventful news to heed the orders to fall back. 

Trueman Tisdale stood statute-like in his wet gar¬ 
ments as his gaze w T andered to the raging sea, lit up 
less frequently now by the flashes of lightning from 
the storm that seemed to have expended its fury 
when it had dashed that freighter to pieces on the 
reef. Though he spoke half aloud, his words were 
to himself. 

“And of all those poor devils out there, it had 
to be him!” 

An exclamation from Captain Caleb as Sander¬ 
son’s eyelids flickered. 

“He’s cornin’ ’round!” 

But Trueman did not hear. 

“And I brought him in—” 

Ozra Hemingway turned away disgustedly. 

“There hain’t no call to save his sort of man,” he 
droned righteously. 

“I saved him—” went on Trueman Tisdale, still 
unheeding all but his own thoughts. But the words 
of Ozra Hemingway broke into his consciousness 
without his volition. 


272 


THE RIVER ROAD 


“For HER!” Ozra sneered, and then with his 
gnarled little hands on both hips, it being impossible 
for the time for him to snap his suspenders which 
were safe under his tightly fastened slicker, he 
pushed his wizened face up as far as he could to de¬ 
mand of the man he faced: “What are ye goin’ ter 
do, True Tisdale?” 

As he might have brushed aside an annoying in¬ 
sect, the big lightship captain brushed his tormenter 
aside, as he went on. His thoughts, his mental 
processes, for the time being, were all for himself, 
but his words were spoken aloud. 

“It wasn’t meant that I should take him from the 
sea and cast him back again,” he half whispered, as 
his gaze rested on the upturned face of the man over 
whom the others were still working furiously and 
with ever and ever increasing chances of success. 

“It wasn’t meant for me to do that. Fate sent me 
out there! Fate sent him to me! There’s a mean- 

• • • |M 

mg in it! 

“What are ye goin’ ter do, True Tisdale, I ask 
ye?” 

Ozra Hemingway had no notion of giving up his 
advantage. Not even as he saw Martha Tisdale 
struggle to her feet and stand for a moment looking 
as dazedly as her husband at the scene before her— 
that scene lighted by the blaze of the burning cedar 
and the dull glow of the inadequate lantern. She 
shuddered as though at some gruesome spectacle. 

“Then—it was—him!” she whispered, as she half 


THE RIVER ROAD 


273 


tottered forward. “I saw him—for one moment, 
out there in the dark, and then—” 

“What are ye goin’ ter do, True Tisdale ?” 

Ozra’s question, repeated for the third time, took 
on a menace. But Trueman Tisdale was not hear¬ 
ing. As he stood in the darkness, in the dying storm 
he had breasted, he was fighting another battle—a 
battle with himself. His problem was not for con¬ 
sultation with such as Ozra Hemingway. He 
brought up with a start, though, as Martha flung her¬ 
self on him. 

“Trueman!” she cried, her heart in her voice. 
But still he did not answer. 

From the man on the sand slowly recovering his 
senses, Captain Caleb rose and came to Tisdale on 
whose taut arm he placed a sympathetic hand. 

“True!” he said gently. 

“Oh, True—my husband,” Martha’s cry pierced 
through the haze of the man’s consciousness as no 
other sound had done. There was a break in her 
voice—a sob, half hysterical. “Oh, Trueman, you 
—we—can’t let him die—now!” 

One moment more Trueman Tisdale’s figure stood 
as rigid as a spar. One moment more he gave to his 
battle. Then his arms relaxed, his figure sagged. 
Wearily he pushed aside those who sought to com¬ 
fort him, to give advice—or aid. Three steps he 
took to the side of the man who lay in the sand. Fie 
looked down at him with strange eyes. 

Then he bent over and picked up the still uncon- 


274 


THE RIVER ROAD 


scious, but heavy breathing sailor and threw him 
across his shoulder. 

“Bring the lantern,” he commanded to Martha, 
unnoticing the others, as he trudged off up the 
beach toward the wet steps that led to the highland 
and his lighted cottage. 

Gasps went up from the crowd that watched. It 
was Ozra Hemingway who broke the tension. 

“He’s taking him home, the fool! He’s taking 
him home!” 


CHAPTER XXII 


I N some ways, the life of Martha Tisdale in Bay- 
port, after the courageous rescue of Nate San¬ 
derson by her husband and herself, was a bit 
easier. In other ways it was harder—far harder. 
And the pendulum swung to the wrong side with 
greater and greater rapidity as the days went by— 
the days on which Sanderson lay in her house, and 
during which, at her husband’s command, she 
nursed him. 

Now there were more of the men of the town— 
those who knew, recognized and rewarded courage 
—and a few of the women who were for letting by¬ 
gones be by-gones and giving the girl a chance to 
prove herself. Maybe, after all, she had not done 
all the things they had thought she had. Trueman 
Tisdale had been pretty mum about that Boston trip 
of his, and surely, if he had found anything really 
wrong, he would not have brought his wife back. 
Perhaps— 

Something Mrs. Anastasia Fish said in the Nep¬ 
tune Club one day, when she had been there finish¬ 
ing up some of her arrangements for a fortnightly 
fish supper, illustrated how the kinder element took 
things—but on the other hand, there were words 
and words and ever increasing words of Ma Tisdale, 

275 


276 


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Mehitable Sands, Ozra Hemingway, as leaders and 
other irreconcilables to combat. 

Captain Hen Berry had dropped into the club 
rooms and was idling away the time before he 
should go over to the post office for the noon mail, 
by watching Captain Lem and Captain Tony at their 
important checker game, while Mrs. Fish went about 
the clearing up that the old members were by this 
time beginning to look upon rather as an evil they 
could not combat than as the annoyance it had once 
been. They were not even particularly noticing Mrs. 
Fish’s own annoyance, until she suddenly asked them, 
in a voice as peevish as any her cheerful self ever 
used: 

“Any of ye seen that Caleb? Here he was 
a-promisin’ ter come over an’ help me, but I s’pose 
he’s busy as usual. Humph! Failin’ all over my 
heels when I don’t want him and mighty certain ter 
be missin’ when I do.” 

Captain Hen only grinned as the buxom lady 
flounced about her duties, but as though her wanting 
her husband had been the signal for his appearance, 
it was the jovial face of the huge captain that showed 
as the door banged open. His countenance took 
on a look of humility when he sighted his wife. 

“Jest saw Ma Tisdale up the street,” he informed, 
hesitatingly, “and she was lookin’ for ye—says she 
wants a special meetin’ of the auxil’ry right away to 
settle Martha. She’s still harpin’ on that subject— 
says things have gone far ’nought—” 

Mrs. Fish sniffed as she viciously wiped a large 


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277 


dust rag across the roughly polished surface of the 
long table that had for many years seen cabin duty 
on board an old-time brigantine. 

“Humph! Ma Tisdale’s some strong on wantin’, 
ain’t she?” was her comment. 

Captain Hen grinned a wry smile as he sunk his 
teeth into a fresh plug of tobacco. “Got th’ world’s 
record, I ’low, Mis’ Fish,” he said. 

But Mrs. Fish went on. It was plain to see by 
the way she attacked her cleaning that something 
was in her mind that must come out. It was not 
usually the way with this spouse of the big captain’s 
to take the men of the Neptune Club, the older men 
especially, on whom she looked as children who must 
be tended and humored, into her confidence. But 
now her lips shut grimly as she stood still, the clean¬ 
ing rag dangling idle in her hand for a moment. 

“I ’low you men know Ma Tisdale’s still deter¬ 
mined ter drive Martha out of town?” she asked 
grimly. “Now she’s canvassin’ the members of the 
auxil’ry—goin’ from house to house. I’ve got half 
a mind to get out of hit.” 

Old Captain Tony stopped right in the middle 
of an important move to look up eagerly—Captain 
Tony, who never took much part in any town con¬ 
troversies. 

“No sense in stoppin’ half way, Mis’ Fish,” he 
told her, and went back to his game. 

Mrs. Fish placed her capable hands on her capa¬ 
cious hips as she faced the club members. “Only 
said I’d half a mind ter,” she declared. “But I 


278 


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ain’t goin’ ter. ’Low there’s plenty to keep me here 
now. Mebby there’s some regular folks in this 
auxil’ry, but not ’nough of ’em. I’m in favor of 
purity, sanctity and a god-like life just as much as 
anybuddy else, but I call what’s bein’ done to Martha 
Tisdale downright persecution! Humph! There 
they are a-cacklin’ an’ a-cacklin’ and all the time 
Martha ain’t done no more’n she’s been told to do. 
True brung Nate Sanderson to their house: True 
told her to nurse him. She’s done it, the best she 
knows how, but that’s all she’s done—” 

Mrs. Fish’s oration was stopped directly in the 
middle by the surprising action of her husband. Be¬ 
fore she could even divine his purpose, he had 
clasped her big body to his own huge one and given 
her a resounding smack on her round pink cheek. 

“’Stasia,” he enthused, “By godfrey! you’re 
actually human ” A clip on his ear from his spouse 
answered him, but he still clung to her as he turned 
to wink a broad wink toward the grinning men. 
“There, now,” he asked triumphantly, “didn’t I say 
she was plumb human?” 

Mrs. Fish wriggled loose from him, a bit em¬ 
barrassed. But she was not as altogether displeased 
as her sour tone would imply as she asked: “What 
did ye think I was—a toad? Ye’re a fool, Caleb 
Fish!” 

“Mebby I am, ’Stasia, mebby I am,” Captain 
Caleb’s head wagged, “but it’s worth bein’ told hit 
to hear ye talkin’ that way.” 

And well might those who, unquestioning taking 


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279 


her and her husband at their face value, were still 
upholders of Martha Tisdale, be glad at one kindly 
word spoken in her behalf. There were not many of 
them. In spite of the somewhat grudging tribute to 
her courage which the post office gatherings were 
willing to give, she had not ceased to be the chief 
topic of their gossip. 

Strangely enough, too, there were those who 
blamed her principally for the presence in the Tisdale 
home of Nate Sanderson—notwithstanding the fact 
that she was caring for the man at her husband’s 
orders, and that Trueman himself had taken him 
there. They could know nothing, either of the 
understanding between husband and wife—the scenes 
that had been staged in the small kitchen of the Tis¬ 
dale home when Martha had pleaded, argued, 
reasoned, all to no avail—that Trueman send San¬ 
derson away. 

“No, Martha,” he had said, and his eyes had 
looked straight into her own—bored into her soul. 
“You’ve wanted your chance—now you have it. You 
wanted to show Bayport that you were to be trusted, 
that you cared only for your husband—now you can 
do it. It is your battle—and you must win it alone.” 

And Trueman Tisdale had again gone back to his 
lightship, leaving his weeping wife who felt more 
friendless than ever before in her life, but with a 
greater love for her husband, though she now be¬ 
lieved it more futile than ever. She had pretended 
that she did not even notice that Trueman went away 
without his usual kiss, but she had not let him see 


280 


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her lips brush his coat sleeve as his back was 
turned. 

Martha Tisdale indeed had to fight her battle 
alone, for although Trueman had prevailed on Mrs. 
Lou Barzum’s granny to come and stay in the Tis¬ 
dale home—Granny was past the age where gossip 
or anything else save a warm place to sit and enough 
tea made any difference to her—she might as well 
have been alone with the man whose smirks even 
while he lay in bed and let her minister to him, were 
anathema. 

Too late she had learned why Nate Sanderson 
had prevailed on her to go to Boston in his company, 
promising to find her father—a promise she knew 
now he could not have kept because he knew noth¬ 
ing whatever about her father; too late she knew him 
for the kind of man he was. As she went about her 
nursing, doing her husband’s bidding, she tried to 
still the bitter hatred of him—hatred that was all the 
greater when she reasoned that because of him she 
could never hope to hold the husband she adored. 
She could not know the prayer that was in Trueman 
Tisdale’s heart as he stood beside his dory, down in 
the cove, before he shoved off—looking back at the 
home he had quitted, now bright once more after the 
storm, and its setting giving promise of the flush 
grandeur of approaching autumn. 

“God, I pray Thee,” murmured Trueman, head 
bared, “let her make her battle—let her win!” 

And so it was that all that had happened before in 
the affairs of the Tisdales and Sanderson were of 



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281 


minor importance as groundwork for gossip in Bay- 
port compared to the situation that now existed. 
Scarcely anything else was of sufficient importance 
to discuss at all. 

Only the most loyal friends of Trueman Tisdale, 
and those almost exclusively the older members of 
the Neptune Club, could find anything to say in de¬ 
fense of his action in keeping Sanderson in his home. 
As for Martha herself, a few visits up the River 
Road into town in an effort to escape the hateful 
atmosphere in which Sanderson was, were enough 
for her. In the street, she was cut dead, or treated 
with open scorn even by those who before had had 
a trifle of sympathy for her. 

True to her word never to step inside the Tisdale 
home as long as Martha was mistress there, Ma 
Tisdale had been having the time of her life at first, 
“visitin’ ’round,” but as she, too, noticed that her 
welcome in various places was wearing itself out a 
bit—especially as any news she had to convey was 
only old news that they all knew—she had come 
to see that if she was ever to again preside over the 
Tisdale cottage she must waste no time in her pur¬ 
pose of getting Martha out of the town, once and 
for all. 

She knew how useless it would be to appeal to 
Trueman. Tie was too big a fool, she said, too 
taken in by a pretty face, just as all men were, to see 
sense. So what she intended doing, she gave it out, 
was as much for his own good as for hers. 

She was in her most belligerent mood on the morn- 


282 


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ing she dropped into the Neptune Club, intent on 
finding Mrs. Fish, on the same morning and but a 
few minutes after that worthy lady had announced 
her opinions in no uncertain terms to the club mem¬ 
bers, thereby gaining the encomiums and a kiss from 
her husband. In his mild manner of always being 
placating, it was Captain Hen who first greeted Ma 
as she bounced into the club where Mrs. Anastasia 
Fish was suddenly once more busy with her dust rag. 

“Mornin’, Mis’ Tisdale,” he offered mildly. 

“Mornin’!” Ma Tisdale’s word snapped out, but 
she wasted no more time on the men. She strode 
over to Mrs. Fish, busy straightening the pictures on 
the wall. 

“I’ve been lookin’ for you,” she said firmly. 
“There’s goin’ to be a special meetin’ of the auxil’ry 
to-night. Ten members has signed this petition,” as 
she flourished a paper before the other’s nose, 
“callin’ for it. Hope ye’ll be there.” 

“I can’t help a-thinkin’ that—” the other began, 
only to be caught up short by the determined sharp¬ 
nosed woman who had addressed her. 

“Save yer thinkin’ for the meetin’, Anastasia 
Fish,” she snorted disdainfully. “Say what’s on yer 
mind there—if ye’ve got the courage to!” She 
turned to look sharply through her square-framed 
glasses at the assembled men members of the club. 
“And there won’t be any men there, either,” she 
affirmed shortly. 

Captain Hen scratched thoughtfully at his thin 
grizzled head. “Don’t know as I’m jest crazy about 


THE RIVER ROAD 


283 

bein’ there, judgin’ from the weather signals,” he 
admitted. 

“Does look like a busy evenin’ ahead,” Captain 
Caleb muttered contemplatively as he saw the 
glowering looks Ma Tisdale cast in his direction, but 
for once in his life he was not dismayed by them. 
He went on bravely: “You’re a blamin’ Martha for 
nursin’ Nate Sanderson, but ye’re forgettin’ True 
asked her ter nurse him.” 

Ma’s sniff all but upset her glasses as she came 
back: “If Trueman’s a fool, I ain’t. I know what 
her nursin’ him, an’ him a-smilin’ up at her like 
Granny Barzum says, means. An’ I know what it’s 
all a-leadin’ up ter. Whatever folks may be 
a-thinkin’ of me, they know I’m decent!” 

Captain Hen spat viciously at the painted 
cuspidor, and for once in his life, missed it. 

“Anyone provin’ that Martha ain’t?” he shouted, 
with outthrust chin, and then before Ma Tisdale 
could gain her breath for another onslaught he 
stopped her with uplifted hand as he added, with a 
world of meaning: “Oh, I know well enough what 
they’re sayin’. You kain’t tell me, but what I’m askin’ 
is—is any one provin’ it?” 

Ma Tisdale’s narrow shoulders shook with anger 
at this heresy, but she found voice to answer in the 
captious tone she always employed with these men 
whose club rights she and her kind had usurped, and 
whose lives she had made but slightly less miserable 
than the girl wife she was bent on hectoring. 

“When the time comes we’ll prove all that’s 


284 


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needed. She’s goin’ to be voted down in the 
auxil’ry; then she's goin’ to be thrown out of my 
house—Trueman or no Trueman.” Ma Tisdale’s 
voice rose to a shout as the infuriated woman pro¬ 
nounced her ultimatum in the face of this, the only 
opposition she had encountered in a day’s can¬ 
vassing. 

She breathed a sigh of relief as Ozra Hemingway 
slithered through the doorway. Here at least, was 
an ally, even if one of the hated species of mascu¬ 
linity. But then, Ozra wasn’t much of a man. His 
presence, however, gave her courage to add, with a 
hateful sneer: “Then we’ll see where she heads with 
her lover!” 

Mrs. Anastasia Fish dropped her cleaning rag 
and turned squarely around. 

“I wouldn’t be sayin’ that,” she reproved sternly. 

“Wal, I have—and I mean it!” Ma stopped for 
lack of breath. 

M rs. Fish continued calmly. “Once before,” she 
said, “I called hit to yer attention that Martha may 
have been foolish and done wrong—but as I told ye 
then, who hasn’t sometime or other. But what I 
said then, goes just as strong now—stronger, seein’ 
how unfair some folks are to her after all she’s done. 
I’m goin’ to treat Martha decent, and that’s flat!” 

Ozra Hemingway, long enough out of things, de¬ 
cided it time for his contribution. 

“See Sistare’s back,” he said almost too casually, 
“likely means True’ll be cornin’ ashore to-night— 


THE RIVER ROAD 


285 


but,” and he nodded to Ma Tisdale, “we’ll be havin’ 
the meetin’ jest the same?” 

Captain Hen’s broad countenance, registering as 
much of a sneer as its rubicundity would permit, 
permitted him one ejaculation toward the back 
of Ma Tisdale as she set sail for the doorway with 
all the dignity that her angularity would allow: 
“Thought ye said there wouldn’t be any men at that 
meetin,’ Mis Tisdale,” he remarked, but as his faded 
blue eyes glared balefully at Ozra who trailed after 
her, he added, “I ’low ye were right, for onct.” 

“Are ye goin’, ’Stasia?” Caleb Fish’s utterance 
was as much of a whisper as his weather-toned vocals 
would permit as the door banged behind Ma Tis¬ 
dale and her ally, and he addressed his question to 
his frowning wife. She dusted her hands with the 
gesture of a task completed as she whisked on her 
bonnet. Her eyes snapped, and her big roly-poly 
figure quivered with a new dignity as she turned to 
him. 

“After that?” she exploded, “course I am! I’m 
a Tinker, and no one ever shoved too much down a 
Tinker’s throat—not even you. What’s more, I’m 
goin’ ter stir up a few more what has ter learn they 
can breathe without askin’ Ma Tisdale. An’ ye 
mind my words, Caleb Fish,” and her tightened fist 
shook at him as though her husband had done her 
an unendurable injury, “if ye let me weaken at the 
last minnit ter save Martha Tisdale then our twenty 
years of married bliss will end in a crash. I’m goin’ 
now,” and as she took his arm in a no uncertain grip 


286 


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she added, “so are you. Ye’re goin’ ter spend the 
rest of the day helpin’ me get the strength ter do the 
right thing!” 

Mrs. Anastasia Fish didn’t have to drag her hus¬ 
band to the door of the Neptune Club. For once 
he was eager to leave with her—and proud. The 
broad grin on his face as he meekly followed her, 
with one glance around at his clubmates, was sig¬ 
nificant. 

“By godfrey, Hen,” he confided, “ye don’t know 
what you’ve missed after all by not bein’ married—” 
he began, but his wife stopped him with: “Some poor 
woman’s missed a heap of trouble.” Still un¬ 
noticing her, he finished jubilantly, before she drag¬ 
ged him through the doorway: “If I was single, an’ 
she was, I’d marry her all over—jest for this—” 

Captain Hen allowed himself one final remark, 
before he immersed himself in the intricacies of the 
checker game that had been so abruptly halted—as 
were so many of the doings of the old members of 
the Neptune Club since the women had pirated the 
ship— 

“True’s mighty queer—in his steering,” he said, 
thoughtfully, “can’t see why he don’t leave that in¬ 
fernal lightship alone long enough to teach ’em some¬ 
thin’—” 

Captain Tony hesitatingly moved a black king, 
after thought that might have been given over the 
drafting of a world-significant treaty. He shifted 
his cud to the side of his face that it might not inter¬ 
fere with his enunciation. 


THE RIVER ROAD 


287 


“Seen Martha settin’ on the dock a day or so 
ago waitin’ for True to come ashore. He didn’t 
come—she didn’t know then like we know now that 
True was doin’ Jed Sistare’s trick so’s Jed could go 
to Harwich to see his sick wife.” 

The stubby, work-hardened, sea-air toughened 
fingers of Captain Hen clawed slowly at his fringe of 
whiskers. His head wagged sagely; his eyes were 
on a distant scene; he spoke half to himself: 

“True’s got a wife that’s mighty sick herself— 
mighty sick—breakin’ her heart for him.” 




CHAPTER XXIII 


F OR all their conjecturing, it was hard for Bay- 
porters to decide just what was Nate Sander¬ 
son’s reaction to the situation into which Fate 
had flung him by way of a turbulent storm and 
treacherous sea. Bayporters may have had their 
faults, but they had no way of estimating just such a 
man as Nate Sanderson. He was out of their cate¬ 
gory. There may have been rotters among them, 
but not just such as he—so the gossip that flew about 
did not much take Nate Sanderson into considera¬ 
tion, save for a few who condoned him because he 
did not hesitate to take the gifts the gods provided. 

For a time, Sanderson himself was puzzled. He 
was recovering rapidly, under the conscientious 
treatment he was receiving at Martha’s hands, with 
no idea whatever that she was pleading on every 
occasion on which she saw her husband for him to 
send the man away to a hospital—to come ashore 
and be with her himself. Always Trueman Tisdale 
shook his head in that all-conclusive way she had 
come so well to know. 

“Not yet, Girl—not yet!” was the easiest way he 
put it. “Not yet—things are coming around all 
right.” 

Trueman Tisdale had had a bed brought down 

288 


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289 


from up-stairs and placed in his best room for the 
man whom Fate had sent for him to bring back to 
life. And so as the days went by, and Nate Sander¬ 
son grew in strength in the Tisdale “sittin’ room,” 
with its haircloth furniture, its old pictures of dead 
and gone Tisdales—its piano which Martha never 
glanced at without her soul remembering that 
Dorothy had sung to her— 


“I shall love thee, dear, forever, 

Though the years shall pass away—” 

She shuddered as she saw the satanically com¬ 
placent, good-looking face of Sanderson, there 
among her best pillows, contaminating even her 
memories— 

Nate Sanderson had had time for thinking. 
Martha, it was true, had assumed the attitude to¬ 
ward him of a professionally trained nurse, of an 
automaton whose only interest in him was in that 
of a “case,” in whom she had no personal interest 
whatever. But Nate Sanderson, watching her, im¬ 
bued with a conceit so overwhelming that he be¬ 
lieved the very elements were in league with him to 
perpetuate his impossible existence, laughed with 
throat and eyes, and waited. Martha was interested 
in him—of course she was! How could she help it! 
Why else the tender consideration? 

Once, on a day when he was feeling especially fit, 
but before Doctor Seward had said that he might 
get up, Sanderson thought it time to begin. He tried 


too 


THE RIVER ROAD 


to possess himself of one of Martha’s hands as she 
held the tray for him to take his lunch—dinner, they 
called it in Bayport, but Martha was following doc¬ 
tor’s orders. 

“Martha,” he said, “Fve always heard that 
women were angels, but—there are so few— 
angels!” 

One moment he tried to look soulfully into her 
eyes, only to find them averted, and not averted as 
might have been the case with one impressed. The 
red blood that showed at the nape of her neck was 
illuminative. Perhaps it was not the time to say 
much to her. Perhaps an invalid was not all that he 
had ever heard they might be in the way of gaining 
a woman’s affections. 

Nate Sanderson’s glimpse of himself in the long 
mirror that had been brought from China a long 
time ago to be put up in the Tisdale parlor, showed 
him that he was really not the romantic specimen 
he felt himself to be. But Nate Sanderson smiled; 
he could wait. And he had no compunction in dream¬ 
ing as his eyes wandered out through the Tisdale 
windows over the water toward the lightship in the 
distance—the same vista which had claimed Martha 
so many times in the days when she had believed that 
troubles were past. 

As Nate Sanderson grew stronger, his conceit 
grew greater. He had run across one thing in his 
life he could not understand. Martha Tisdale 
seemed actually to have a feeling of repulsion 
toward him. It was something new in his lexicon— 


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291 


he who had prided himself his whole life that his 
charms were such that no woman could withstand 
him. He thought it over carefully that first day he 
was out on the Tisdale porch, with the sunlight 
streaming in reflections from the sea that had 
recently all but overcome him, over the little porch 
with its homey appearance, with Martha’s hammock 
which he had scorned with a strong man’s humor to 
laughingly place himself in a splint-bottomed chair. 
What was the reason? The answer seemed to come 
to him in a flash. Why, Martha was shamming! 
She was playing a part! How better could she have 
played it than by piquing him as she had during the 
days she would not so much as let him touch her 
hand. She must be piqued herself because he made 
no further effort to win her since that time in Boston. 

Women were all alike, he laughed—they wanted 
what he had heard called, and had seen as “cave 
man stuff” in the movies he frequented when away 
from this slow tow 7 n of Bayport. He had given up 
too easily. Well, it shouldn’t happen again. The 
winning of Martha—she whom he had thought so 
nearly won once before, was merely a matter of 
technique, a matter of time. 

Strange as it may seem, during all Sanderson’s 
illness which was no more than the recuperation of a 
strong man from the shock of exhaustion and 
extreme peril, he had not seen Trueman Tisdale. 
He had not at first thought this strange, but as the 
days went by, he had come to believe that the man’s 
continued absence argued in his favor. Trueman 


292 


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could not care much about Martha. Why, other¬ 
wise, leave her alone—and at the mercy of one so 
invincible as he—Sanderson? 

The way seemed open to him, ;even as he sat at 
the window in his low chair and allowed Martha 
to wait on him, a man who in his heart knew that, 
after the ten days he had spent in the Tisdale home, 
he was as fit as any mate who ever sailed a freighter 
from Boston, or any other port. Sanderson had 
not shown any interest in the other men of the crew 
of the ill-fated steamer, much to Martha’s horror. 

“Captain’s fault,” unsympathetically said Sander¬ 
son, when he was questioned. “Not my watch. I 
was asleep when we lost our headway—everybody 
excited—but probably no great loss. She didn’t 
carry a crew of more than fourteen men, and there 
wasn’t a passenger on board—all too afraid of the 
threatening weather. But why worry,” remarking 
the revulsion on Martha’s face, as she listened to 
this quiz and answers—Dr. Seward had taken time 
to ask the questions—later he would be interrogated 
by the United States Commissioners. “Maybe some 
of ’em’ll be picked up at sea or somewhere—they 
were not a lot to get lost without a struggle. Look 
at me.” 

But Martha Tisdale had not the heart to laugh 
with him. If she had thought Nate Sanderson heart¬ 
less before—in her own case—she knew him to be 
doubly so now. In Boston, when she had found that 
he knew nothing of her father—and after that one 
long look out of that cheap lodging house window 



THE RIVER ROAD 


293 


at the women she saw parading the streets—she re¬ 
membered the shudder as she had pictured herself 
one of them before Trueman had so miraculously 
opened the door and come for her. 

It is a hard thing for one of Martha’s age, inured 
as she was to the pain that one human being can give 
to another, to believe that there could still exist so 
hardened a human being as this one who laughed at 
the probable fate of another. She remembered her 
own reactions when she was out there in the tumbling 
black seas, guided by the lightning flashes toward 
some one she had never known, never seen, only 
known must be a human in distress. 

The patience of Trueman Tisdale’s wife w r ith her 
unwanted, unasked guest, he whom she knew was per¬ 
fectly able to be about and doing for himself on the 
tenth day of his stay, was about exhausted. She 
wondered what she could do. Trueman surely must 
be coming ashore soon, and then she would ask—no, 
demand —that he take Nate Sanderson away. She 
was in the kitchen preparing the tea for Granny 
Barzum when she heard the faint footfalls that she 
knew were not Granny’s. She faced about, teapot 
in hand. Nate Sanderson stood in the doorway, 
grinning at her, in what, no doubt he believed to be 
a fascinating fashion. 

“Hello, Sweets,” he greeted. “Tea, eh? 
’T’would be different, if you and I were in Boston 
again —when we are in Boston again, I should say,” 
he amended. 

Martha pretended not to notice him as she whirled 


294 


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to the stove and viciously shoved another piece of 
wood under the already highly burning embers. 
Nate Sanderson came closer; his voice was wheedling. 

“What’s the use of playing off any longer, Chick?” 
he begged. “You’ve had me on the pan long enough. 
You know what you think of me—so do I, and—” 

It had come—the thing that Martha had dreaded 
—the thing she had been warding off ever since Nate 
Sanderson had been an unwelcome guest under her 
husband’s roof—she could not in all fairness call it 
her own. Over and over she had told herself what 
she would say in case he ever showed his hand, but 
now when the crisis had come, her tongue clove to 
the roof of her mouth. She only found movement 
in slamming a stovelid down with a decisive gesture. 
Her whole body seemed to turn cold, in spite of the 
fire that flamed up from the opened stove lids as the 
man approached her. There was horror in the re¬ 
vulsion of her feeling against him. Her very lips 
felt palsied, but she forced the words to them, as the 
horror approached her. 

“Go away! For God’s sake, go away!” she 
begged. 

“And leave you—to cry your eyes out after?” 
Nate Sanderson laughed nastily. “You don’t know 
me, little one—not yet. I’ll go—but you’re coming 
with me—” 

Nate Sanderson’s speech was left unfinished. He 
was half bowled over by the feminine whirlwind who 
threw teapot and stove holder from her as she fled 


THE RIVER ROAD 


29* 

from the kitchen out into the kitchen garden and the 
pebbled path and into the coming twilight. 

Before he could even divine her purpose she had 
flown down the pathway—away from him. 

“Little devil,” gritted Nate Sanderson, as he 
strode toward the opened kitchen door and down 
the path toward the cove which her flying feet had 
trod. Right at the cove entrance he caught her— 
caught her just as she had sighted the dory pulled up 
on the small beach, the dory she knew was Trueman’s 
—the dory that told her he must be somewhere 
about. Nate Sanderson saw it, too. 

“Think he’s come back, do you,” he sneered. 
“He don’t want you—this is only a convenient place 
for him to beach his skiff when he wants to go off to 
the club and see what they’re saying about his— 
saintly—wife.” 

But Nate Sanderson had reckoned without the 
innate courage that is given even to the fisher-girl of 
those hard coasts. Martha Tisdale, in spite of her 
obscure parentage, in spite of the fact that her father 
had been the ne’er-do-well fisherman who was the 
jibe of his fellows, was a true daughter of those who 
had come long before that father—those who had 
left their heritage of courage and beauty and Yankee 

grit. " 

Martha Tisdale had been intimidated possibly 
until she had lost some of the courage of the ancestry 
that was far behind her father. She had shrunk at 
execrations. She had been afraid of holding up her 
head; had run away. But now that a crisis had 


296 


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come, she turned on this man who pursued her as 
any wild man in another age might have pursued 
the female he had determined to haul off to his 
cave—turned on him with the rage of the female 
forced to extremity. 

Perhaps there might have been something in the 
fact that she had sighted Trueman’s dory, that she 
felt conscious of his nearness, even if he were in the 
town instead of here—at least he was not on his 
lightship across waters too unfathomable to be 
waded—but with a rush, whatever the reason, her 
courage—the courage she had not been able to 
summon in Boston save for that one minute in 
which she had slammed and bolted the door against 
this man—came to her. A daughter fit to be called 
of the vikings as the man who had taken her to mate 
might be called son, she faced the lecherous male 
who leered at her. 

“You beast!” The serpent’s voice was no less per¬ 
ceptible than that of the daughters of Eve handed 
down in a far earlier generation. “You filthy beast! 
You and your lying tongue—you took a fool of a 
woman—a poor witless crazy fool of a woman 
away—away from her own man—with a story 
crazier than she. And because she went, you think 
she’s yours. Because she listened, because she 
thought she had to—to be polite and grateful 
enough—” There was an indescribable curl of dis¬ 
dain in the girl’s perfect red lips—“Because she 
listened to your protestations of love—LOVE,” the 
sneer became almost an animate thing, “you think 



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she’s yours ! Listen! Listen! Why, it wasn’t you! 
It never was you! Any other smirking, lying, flatter¬ 
ing thief would have served just as well just then! 
It was her own empty head, her own shallow vanity, 
her own pitifully-being sorry-for-herself-without- 
cause—her own blindness to the truth of life that 
took her away that time you’re trying to make so 
much of!” 

Her breath came in hoarse gasps as she tried to 
make her meaning known, a breath which on begin¬ 
ning had seemed so sure and strong. It died down, 
but went on before the astonished man could speak 
the laughing words of unbelief his lips had framed. 

‘‘Listen to me,” she went on, her breath indrawn 
between her clinched teeth, “I never loved you— 
even when I said I might be—might be—” She 
shuddered as she saw the laughing lips of Nate San¬ 
derson, who was refusing even to take this most 
serious moment of her life in earnest. 

“Listen,” she commanded, with a stamp of her 
foot in the sand, “don’t think I ever loved you. 
You were something that only happened by chance. 
Now you are not even that! You’re nothing at all! 
I love my own man—do you understand me? And 
this is how I love him—for his wonderful goodness, 
his great heart and soul; if it would serve him in 
any way, if it would give him a single moment of 
happiness or add a day to his beautiful life—I d 
kill you where you stand, Nate Sanderson, and throw 
your carcass to the sea! And I’d pay the price twice 
over, and I’d count it a blessed privilege!” 


THE RIVER ROAD 


£98 

With one arm extended as she uttered her last 
word, Martha Tisdale stood like some sea princess 
of old, in her cove home, sending forth the invaders 
from the enemy coasts. Her pointing finger almost 
touched Nate Sanderson’s leering eye. 

“Now go!” she commanded. 

To Trueman Tisdale, screened from the sight of 
his wife and Sanderson behind a clump of small 
alders, there came, at the outburst from the wife he 
loved his full reward for all the heartbreak, all the 
ostracism, all the heroic abnegation of the many 
weeks since his wife’s one mis-step. 

It had been in no spying mood that Trueman had 
followed his wife and Nate to the cove. They had 
not seen nor heard him as he had trudged up the 
path toward the house after his landing. His crunch 
on the graveled walk had been drowned out by the 
drama of their talk. Then, hidden behind the hedge 
of hollyhocks and sunflowers, in their decaying 
splendor, he had seen the flight of Martha, and his 
heart ached that he could not rush out to her rescue. 
But that same Puritan heart with its New England 
training had bidden him halt—had told him that 
now was the decisive moment of her battle and that 
he must not interfere. 

It had not, therefore, been in any spirit of spying, 
but rather with a doleful idea of shielding the 
woman he loved from the frailty which he did not 
even yet admit to himself was not, should she finally 
yield to her tempter, or—far better his heart told 
him—to help her should she need help, that he had 


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299 


slipped along that same path taken by the flying 
Martha and trodden a bit more leisurely, but more 
confidently by Nate Sanderson. For in his heart, 
Trueman Tisdale, though he had left his wife to fight 
her own battle for her own good, had been sure that 
sooner or later Nate Sanderson would show his hand 
and would once more try to lure Martha from the 
path of duty! 

He had prayed—and believed—that the man 
would not succeed. But as Martha, glorified by the 
power of righteous adoration for himself, visited her 
storm of repudiation on Sanderson, Trueman Tis¬ 
dale could do nothing but bare his head, there in his 
clump of alders, as his heart sang within him and 
the unaccustomed tears of a strong man came to his 
eyes, and pray: 

“Thou Everlasting God, I thank Thee!” his heart 
prayed, and as he remembered the text he murmured 
simply: “More joy for this penitent, Oh, Lord, than 
for the ninety and nine!” 

It was the death struggle of the Tisdale 
Puritanism—the struggle that had been inherent so 
long that Tisdale, no more than the Bayport con¬ 
tingent of those left with the beliefs of long gone 
ancestors, could help believing—that “she or he who 
has sinned against even these least of these, our little 
conventions, has sinned against all.” 


CHAPTER XXIV 


H AD her bitterest feminine enemies, back in 
the big room over the Neptune Club that 
was the headquarters of the Auxiliary, 
heard Martha Tisdale give her soul-drawn ulti¬ 
matum to Nate Sanderson, they could no longer have 
doubted the girl’s pure heart. The exceptions might 
have been Ma Tisdale and Mehitable Sands, but 
even they were women, and with women’s feelings. 

But in this, one of the bitterest periods of her 
life—the winning moment of her big battle, unknown 
to the wife of Trueman Tisdale, the pendulum was 
at last swinging in her direction, for back in that 
big room the Auxiliary membership was even then 
discussing the matter of Martha Tisdale—her 
'errors, known and imagined—and whether she 
should be hounded out of town. The tide was 
turning. 

Ma Tisdale had outreached herself. 

The very bitterness of her attacks was having the 
opposite effect from that she wished. Slowly, but 
none the less surely, it was being borne in on the club 
members that they were not so much upholding the 
sanctity of their homes as they were taking part in 
a persecution. And with a majority of the women 
of Bayport, the years between the time when their 

300 



jTHE RIVER ROAD 


301 


Puritan ancestors had gloried in persecutions and 
their own day had softened hearts. 

Righteousness was one thing; persecution in the 
name of righteousness was another. And a great 
light was dawning on the women of Bayport to show 
them the difference. 

So, when Mrs. Caleb Fish at last got up to have 
her say, in spite of attempts on the part of Ma Tis¬ 
dale and Mehitable Sands to silence her, the ground 
was fertile for her sowing. 

Men in the club room below wandered restlessly 
about, aimlessly—wondering what was going on up¬ 
stairs—but none of them outside of Ozra Heming¬ 
way, who had attended the Auxiliary meeting as the 
favored guest of Ma Tisdale, had had the courage 
openly to ask for admittance. The sympathy for 
Martha was marked, but few words were said. 

Silently, and in brotherly communion, and with a 
common interest, Captain Caleb and Captain Hen 
Berry smoked their black old pipes and waited for 
news. But when Ozra Hemingway—his wizened 
face more scowling, more disagreeable than was even 
his general way, flounced down the steps and threw 
himself into a chair beside the dismantled stove— 
they were looking for the kind of news Ozra had to 
give. Ozra was disappointed—very. That was 
evident from his unaccustomed silence; and the 
viciousness with which he snapped his long suffering 
suspender, as he glared at the unoffending stuffed 
sail fish on the wall above him. 

Captain Hen broke the silence at last. 


802 


THE RIVER ROAD 


“Meetin’ over,” he inquired mildly. 

“Fur as I’m consarned!” snapped Ozra, as he spat 
out venomously at the nearest cuspidor, “An’ as far 
as I’m consarned I’m through with tryin’ ter keep 
this here town God-fearin’! Fools!” And again his 
talon-like hands snapped his suspender as though he 
were wreaking some other vengeance on something 
more offensive. 

“Somethin’ amiss?” Captain Caleb did not re¬ 
strain his grin as he drawled the question. 

“Huh!” Ozra shook with the wrath the query pro¬ 
duced. “Amiss?” he repeated. “What d’ye think 
them fool wimmen’s been an’ gone and done? ’Stead 
of votin’ for Martha Tisdale to be sent outta town, 
damn ef they didn’t vote her a apology. An’ that 
hain’t the worst,” without deigning to note the happy 
faces of his clubmates at this, probably the first of the 
little man’s news which had ever before brought a 
smile to those kindly old faces. “Didn’t they go an’ 
ackshally vote her into the club!” 

With a groan he subsided into his chair, as though 
the matter were one completely prostrating. 

Captain Hen Berry reached for his battered old 
cap, as Captain Caleb stood up. 

“ ’Low we might as well be gittin’ along, Caleb,” 
he remarked. “Quite a walk down the River Road, 
and we’ll be wantin’ to let Martha know the news 
immediate, won’t we?” 

At the door he stopped a moment to glance up¬ 
ward at the steps that led to the Auxiliary rooms. 

“And—er—Caleb,” he went on while a grin 


THE RIVER ROAD 


303 


played around his mouth and the face with its fringe 
of whiskers was more happily moon-like than ever 
before, “Do ye by any chance happen to know—has 
Anastasia got any female relatives who hain’t 
married?” 


:*1 r.i r»i r»> r•i 

But all unconscious of any vindication, unconscious 
of any ally, even of the nearness of her husband, 
Martha Tisdale was fighting her own decisive 
battle out on the sands of the cove near the Tisdale 
home. Surely, she thought, as she stopped for 
breath after flaying the man before her—her breast 
heaving, her dark eyes flashing lurid points of fire, 
her whole body trembling with the indignation which 
had wrought her up to the point of a fury—surely 
Nate Sanderson could not, would not misunderstand 
her. 

But Sanderson did—or pretended to misunder¬ 
stand. 

It was hardly conceivable—the conceit that was 
the pivotal center of the freighter’s mate—but it was 
there. 

As Martha concluded, he stood for one moment 
looking at her with a cock-sure smile in the bold eyes 
of him. So sure was he of his own irresistibility that 
even now it could not come to him that Martha was 
doing other than playing a part. He twisted his 
small mustache diabolically as he smiled at her. 

Gad, but she was desirable—never more so than 
right now. 


304 


THE RIVER ROAD 


This theatrical pose was decidedly becoming to 
her. But she would assuredly have to be taught to 
keep her place, that she could not say these things too 
strongly to Nate Sanderson. Enough was— 

He laughed nastily as he took a step toward the 
girl who shrank from him, her feet unconsciously 
swerving to take her in a circular way past him and 
up to the temporary safety of the high point of land 
above the cove, the bluff that fell away sheerly to 
the rocks of the coast and the small beach in front of 
her home. 

“What?” he sneered, but his teeth bared in a con¬ 
temptuous smile. “Trying to play it out on that line, 
are you? What’s the game? Another lover some¬ 
where?” 

Nate Sanderson could not know how close to 
death he was at that moment, for he could not see 
the death-like face of Trueman Tisdale hidden from 
sight behind the shrubbery with all the strength of 
will he possessed digging his fingers into his hands 
to restrain himself, but that gesture of muscled hands 
significant of what the neck of the sneering man who 
spoke might expect. 

With another effort of will, Trueman Tisdale 
choked back the words that rasped his throat. Not 
yet! Not yet! 

And so Nate Sanderson went on to his fate. 

“You must think I’m a goat to swallow that gush 
about your wifely love—for a wooden-faced dummy 
like Tisdale—” 

He made a leap forward, too soon for the girl 


THE RIVER ROAD 


305 


who had not been on the lookout to escape him. He 
clutched at her. “You damned little—” 

The vile word that escaped his lips brought one 
gasp of horror from the girl. 

To the eyes of the man back of the shrubbery as 
he took one step forward impulsively, there came 
murder. 

“You—” he added, with his lips draw T n back from 
his teeth in an animal-like lust. “I almost had you 
once, and I’m going to now—for once, and then be 
damned to you!’’ 

With all the brutal self-confidence of a master who 
believed that his slave dare offer no real resistance, 
Nate Sanderson’s arms went out to grasp the wife 
of the man who watched, the husband whose breath 
coming between his lips so harshly that it could not 
have gone unnoticed had not Sanderson’s own sneer¬ 
ing voice been pitched so high—had not his animal¬ 
ism blinded him and deafened him to all else. 

Martha cringed backward, her hands held out to 
ward off the horrifying danger that threatened her. 
Wildly she looked about for escape, and before 
Sanderson’s clutching hands had grasped her, she 
had turned and sped like a deer up the incline to the 
bluff above her. 

Not in the least like a man who had been playing 
the invalid for the days he had wanted to remain 
in the woman’s home, Nate Sanderson leapt after 
her. There w r as a look in his eyes—almost a blood 
l us t—which might have been in the eyes of a brutal 
caveman who pursued a helpless captured prehistoric 
maid. 


306 


THE RIVER ROAD 


On the top of the bluff he overtook her—over¬ 
took her because there was no escape save by the way 
she had come or by throwing herself over the edge 
of the bluff to the rocks below. She gave a gasp 
of horror and closed her eyes as the man seized her 
roughly, holding both her hands in an iron grip be¬ 
hind her back. 

“Now, damn you!” he hissed, as he whirled her 
about and seized her fiercely in his arms with a 
strength she could not combat, “You would, would 
you!” 

Again came the nasty laugh as he held off the 
blows which she struck at him—wildly, with all her 
might—but with as little effect on the lust-maddened 
man as though they had been the wings of a sparrow 
fluttering against the rocks below them. 

Roughly he pressed her to him, and his laugh rang 
out to drown her last despairing, smothered cry of 
“True!” as he pressed his leering face to her own. 

“There,” he triumphed, punctuating each word 
with a kiss that seared her soul, made of her in her 
own mind a thing as vile as the creature that fouled 
her. “Take that! And that! And that!” 

So quickly had it all happened that, although he 
had been prepared for immediate action should 
Martha need him, Trueman Tisdale had not been 
able to reach his wife and the man who would de¬ 
spoil his home in time to prevent that contaminating 
kiss. The clump of cedars from behind which he 
had been so prayerfully watching his wife’s cou¬ 
rageous fight was farther from the bluff up which 


THE RIVER ROAD 


307 


she had fled than the point of land on the cove where 
she had taken her last stand and from where she had 
started to run. 

The ground was rougher, too, between the cedars 
and the bluff than the space over which Martha had 
been pursued by Sanderson, and outcropping ledges 
of granite maddeningly obstructed the progress of 
the husband who rushed to the aid of his wife. 

Nor, in their intentness, did they even hear the 
animal-like bellow of rage that issued from the 
throat of Trueman Tisdale as his long strides 
carried him over the short distance and to the top 
of the bluff where Nate Sanderson stood crushing 
the frightened woman in his arms. 

The first intimation that he djd not have things 
all his own way—that Trueman Tisdale was any¬ 
where about—or cared what was happening—came 
when the dapper mate felt a vicious clutch and the 
lightship captain’s sinewy right hand gripped him by 
the neck, his fingers sinking deep into the muscles of 
his throat, choking back the surprised cry. 

As easily as he might have cast from him an an¬ 
noying yelping puppy, Trueman Tisdale tore Nate 
Sanderson from his victim and flung him aside, and 
the cocksure mate, before he knew what had 
happened to him, had measured his full length on the 
ground. 

Tisdale’s words came from between clenched 
teeth. The sound of his voice was ominous. 

“Nate Sanderson,” he accented each syllable, 
“you’ve come to the end of your anchor chain!” 


CHAPTER XXV 


S OUNDLESSLY, all but breathlessly, but with 
the triumphant love light of the primitive 
woman who watches her mate fight for her, 
Martha Tisdale watched the beginning of that 
struggle which her heart told her would be a titanic, 
a climactic one. 

Once her hands fluttered to her breast, not to 
arrange disheveled garments, but to clasp there as 
though to still the pounding of her heart. Move- 
lessly she watched Trueman spring back as he flung 
his adversary to the ground, instinctively to crouch 
for the onslaught he knew would be forthcoming. 

For, coward that he might be in some matters, 
Nate Sanderson was no physical one, and well True¬ 
man Tisdale knew it. He had looked for an en¬ 
counter—but nothing in his experience with Sander¬ 
son had prepared him for the craven action of the 
man when he drew himself up from the sand and 
leapt for Trueman. 

For when he arose, agile and wary, crouched for 
a spring, he came with a pistol in his right hand. So 
deft, so cautious, had been his movement for that 
one moment he lay on the ground, that neither 
Martha nor Trueman had seen him draw it from his 
pocket. 


308 


THE RIVER ROAD 


309 


One wild cry was wrenched from Martha Tis¬ 
dale’s throat as she leapt forward—too late—at 
sight of the w T eapon. 

“Trueman!” 

Too late, too, was Trueman’s thrust forward at 
sight of the weapon. The shot that resounded along 
the beach, reverberating far out over the waters 
was coincident with his effort to strike the gun aside. 

But it was the sight of the blood that spurted 
from his shoulder, reddening his shirt front and 
sleeve that maddened Trueman Tisdale to the point 
of becoming a fighting animal. For only one second 
did the impact of the bullet halt him, for in one long 
furious bound he had jumped the short space be¬ 
tween him and the cowardly man and before San¬ 
derson could collect himself for a second shot, True¬ 
man Tisdale had grasped the other’s pistol hand with 
a grip that drove his steel-like fingers between the 
others’ knuckles like the teeth of a trap. 

It was an elemental struggle, as Martha had 
known it would be. Her eyes followed eagerly, her 
soul prayerfully, as she stood helplessly rooted to the 
spot, watching the two men who fought—for her. 

Each with his free hand rained blows on face and 
body of the other with the desperation of deadly 
hatred and the lust to kill. There were no rules—no 
compunction. 

But all the while as he battled with his free 
hand, the hand which ran red with the blood from 
the wound in his shoulder—that wound that evened 
up any idea that the struggle might be an unequal 


310 


THE RIVER ROAD 


one, taking Sanderson’s recent illness into considera¬ 
tion—the muscular fingers of Trueman Tisdale’s 
other hand were boring into the muscles and sinews 
of the hand in which Sanderson still held the gun. 

And at last, overcome by the paralyzing agony, 
that hand opened and the disputed weapon clattered 
to the rocky ground where it was kicked by their 
scuffling feet and struck from the reach of either. 

Breaths, deadly with venom, hot with hatred, 
burned in each other’s faces as the men flailed one 
another. But it was Trueman who, ignoring the 
mallet-like blows that hammered on his face and 
vitals, reached out with a quick motion to clutch his 
adversary by the throat with a choking grip, a 
terrible, murderous grip. He hissed into the gasping 
face: 

“You’re facing your Maker, Nate Sanderson— 
and I ain’t envying you!” 

Wildly Sanderson tried for a like grip on the 
throat of his enemy, but his grip lacked power, as 
Trueman laughed his mirthless harsh laugh and 
evaded it. The man’s fingers became mere fluttering 
protests as he pawed at the iron fists that, squeezing 
his windpipe like a rag, were driving the last of his 
breath from his body. 

With Trueman Tisdale, the tide was up—was at 
its flood—that tide for which his neighbors had so 
long waited in vain, that tide his wife had almost 
ceased to believe would ever run for her. But now 
in the man, every atom of the primal instinct in the 


THE RIVER ROAD 


311 


human animal roused to defense of its mate, was 
awakened. 

That one foul word, flung with such brutal 
ruthlessness at a woman humbly repentant for even 
a small error—that loathsome violation of her 
person, made doubly sacred and precious by the 
fervor of her protestations of love for himself— 
those things roared in his ears and blazed before his 
eyes in a sea of red. 

To kill this ravager, this desecrator of homes and 
faith, would be a little thing! To crush it, to smash 
it out of all semblance to humanity, to tear it to 
pieces with his hands, and let its corrupt blood run 
away into the sea—that would be, perhaps, some 
measure of relief for all the pent-up rage and re¬ 
pressed blood of those weeks past! 

Trueman Tisdale’s laugh came again, harsh, 
animal-like as he gloated, watching Nate Sanderson 
dying under his hands. The primitive rage of 
primitive manhood had taken complete possession of 
him. 

He was not the Trueman Tisdale his wife, or his 
Bayport neighbors had known. 

She watched this strange being with a terrified 
fascination, hardly conscious that he was crushing the 
life out of the hateful thing in human form which 
he held in his hands. For Trueman Tisdale, in 
those moments of violent emotion when he had seen 
his wife attacked had undergone a volcanic erup¬ 
tion, all the more severe because of its long re¬ 
strained passion. 


312 


THE RIVER ROAD 


A single overwhelming purpose dominated him, 
as the veins swelled to bursting on his temples, as his 
lips drew back in a line across his set teeth; a single 
thought—to put an end to this hateful life! 

With the suddenness of one of the crashes of 
thunder she had heard on the night she and Trueman 
had rescued Sanderson, and with all its violence, the 
significance of what was happening flashed over 
Martha Tisdale as she stood there, hypnotized, 
watching the struggle. 

Trueman was killing Sanderson! Killing him! 

He must not! Oh, he must not! 

But he was—She saw the man’s resistance cease, 
saw him suddenly go limp; his face was as suddenly 
suffused with a sickening dark flush! Another 
moment and it would all be over! 

And with the realization, Martha Tisdale came 
to life from her hypnotic spell—to act. The thought 
was coincident with the action as she sped to the 
revolver which lay a few feet away, then to rush 
upon her husband and the man he held by the throat. 
With a strength she did not know she possessed, 
given to her in this, her greatest hour of need, she 
fought with the man who was fighting for her, 
struggling, clinging, dragging all her weight on the 
arms that held Nate Sanderson. 

“Oh, Trueman! Trueman!” she screamed, her 
voice a wail that could be heard far up the beach and 
out into the River Road. 

Captain Hen Berry and Captain Caleb, near the 
end of the road on their way to the Tisdale home, 


THE RIVER ROAD 


313 


stopped for just a moment as the cry reached them. 
Then when it came again, they started—started on a 
run. Something was wrong—very w 7 rong. 

And Martha Tisdale held on with a death grip 
of her own. “Trueman! Trueman!” she shrieked 
again and again. “Not you, True—not you, for the 
love of God! You must not! You must not! The 
law, man—the law! They’ll put you in prison—kill 
you! This is for me to do—me, my expiation!” 

Through his blurred consciousness, through all the 
murk of a thousand emotions, one word reached 
Trueman Tisdale. Prison! 

The word brought with it a flash, a swift-racing 
picture of the consequence of this thing he was doing 
—a picture of Martha left alone, robbed of his pro¬ 
tecting arm, living on and on in a torment of re¬ 
morse—scorned, reviled, scourged, beaten by the 
tongue of slander into despair—madness, perhaps— 
with a lonely death at the end of a living hell of life. 
Martha! Who would give her life for him—her 
soul for his soul—to suffer all this through his greed 
for vengeance! 

Slowly his steely fingers relaxed. Slowly, but 
surely, the breath of life flowed back into the gasp¬ 
ing lungs of Nate Sanderson. And with one last 
glance at the man, Trueman Tisdale flung him from 
him with a great gesture of loathing. 

Almost to the edge of the bluff the man staggered 
before he recovered his balance as his hands went up 
to the choking throat to urge the air faster—but on 
his face was a look of hatred that made of it a 


314 


THE RIVER ROAD 


gargoylish caricature of the Nate Sanderson he had 
been. 

For one moment Trueman Tisdale’s hands went 
up to cover his eyes from the sight. A great, heart¬ 
rending sob was torn from his throat. 

“Martha! Martha!” came in broken accents. 

And it was in that moment of covering his face 
that he did not see his wife, did not imagine her in¬ 
tention. He dropped his hands then to see her— 
saw her a few paces away—Martha, her face drawn 
and pallid as that of a corpse, slowly, with the im¬ 
movable intent of deliberate death in her eyes, was 
bringing up that pistol to the level of the heart of 
the man who shrank back at the edge of the bluff. 

For just the second it took his befuddled brain to 
take in the meaning of it, Trueman Tisdale stared, 
half comprehending. The full force of it struck 
him squarely between the eyes. 

Martha was going to complete his vengeance! 

His! 

Too late to grapple with her, Trueman was able 
only to reach her arm in that one bound before the 
shot came, to strike the weapon from her hand as it 
went off harmlessly in the air and then clanged 
metallically on the broken rocks under a cedar that 
hung downward over the edge of the cliff. His arms 
went around her. He had no thought for Sander¬ 
son, for anything, save her. 

Martha! Who would do this thing for him! His 
head bent over to bury itself in her hair as she clung 
to him. His voice was broken. 


THE RIVER ROAD 


315 


“Martha! Martha!” he choked. “He is not 
worth it! I will not let you—” 

The voice of Captain Hen Berry came from back 
of them as the small captain, breathing hard from his 
run up the bluff, brought Tisdale and Martha up¬ 
standing. 

“True!” he cried. “Martha! Look out! Sander¬ 
son ! He’ll get the gun—” 

Trueman whirled from his wife to leap forward. 
Step by step while he had been unnoticed, Nate 
Sanderson had been creeping toward the overhang¬ 
ing cedar and the weapon Trueman had flung there. 

There was grinning murder, satanic triumph in 
the eyes of the man as they turned toward Trueman 
Tisdale leaping toward him, toward Martha, too 
horror-stricken to move, toward Captain Hen and 
big Captain Caleb, laboring up the cliff side, dumb 
at the tragedy they were too late to avert. 

His hand went out to grasp the shining metal. 

But it never reached it. With a grinding of 
stones and settling earth, a roar as of any angry surf, 
the cedar that had held through the storm of many 
a day, but had been so undermined by the last fierce 
onslaught that it clung to the cliff side by roots that 
might have been hairs, gave way beneath the weight 
of the man who crawled there on murderous intent. 

For one second the horror-stricken watchers 
caught a glimpse of Nate Sanderson’s face as he 
went hurtling down—down— He had not had time 
to realize what was happening to him. That face 
still wore a grin of triumph, that murderous intent. 


316 


THE RIVER ROAD 


Big Captain Caleb put out his protesting arm as 
Martha started to run forward to see what had 
happened—what was at the bottom of the cliff. 

“No, Martha—you’d best not look,” he said. 
“It’s the judgment of the Lord—it wouldn’t be a 
sight to be remembered—one who went to his Maker 
with murder in his heart and eyes.” 

Gently Trueman Tisdale drew his sobbing wife 
into his arms. 

He held her to his heart as his eyes wandered out 
over the sea toward the lightship in the distance. 

“My wife! My wife!” he whispered, reverently. 
“God is good to us—He’s saved us from ourselves, 
from breaking His commandments. And He sent 
those to witness—” 

Martha Tisdale’s eyes lifted from her husband’s 
breast for just one shuddering moment to glance at 
Captain Hen and Captain Caleb who stood staring 
dolefully down at the rocks beneath the cliff. Then 
her face was once more hidden against the protecting 
breast as she gave a great wonderful sigh at the com¬ 
fort of her husband’s arms. 

Once more Trueman bent over to whisper. 

“The tide’s turned, Martha—the tide’s turned. 
Ships don’t go on the reefs because they want to, 
Martha—its mainly the fault of the helmsman, so— : 
to-day I’m coming ashore from the lightship, little 
wife —to stay!” 


END 























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